Thursday, July 19, 2007

A New One

I've been working on a few pen and ink studies of railroading subjects. Pen and ink is a fascinating medium, and can be quite unforgiving but provides real opportunities for use of line drawing.

This is an E8 diesel locomotive of the 1950-1970 era, drawn from a reference photo. It is 6x7 on 2-ply Bristol board.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Portrait in Progress

This is the next thing on my easel. It's only a color sketch--the result of a two-hour sitting yesterday--done in preparation for a much larger portrait. The eventual portrait will be one of those "official" kind that includes background items commemorating the career of the subject, who is a former state governor.

The surface was toned with Mars black, wiped back to approximate value 5. Colors on the palette included zinc white, yellow ochre extra pale, cadmium red, a cool pyrollo red, burnt sienna, raw ochre, and ivory black. I sometimes use flake white or even a touch of titanium white when I want a bit more opacity.

This is oil on panel, 11x14.

Monday, July 02, 2007

A Couple of New Ones

Here are two of my newer works. I finished these early last month but in the flurry of activity that preceded the Virginia show, I had no time to post these. One of them (the more yellow one) sold before I left. A friend was visiting the studio and snapped it up. Both are 6x8.

According to some experts, landscapes and florals seem to sell better than nearly any other genre. Last year I did a 30x36 of the central rosette of an aloe plant but having neither time nor space to transport a painting of that size I made a number of smaller pieces. Altogether there were perhaps a dozen of these but most are no longer available.