Thursday, July 27, 2017

The Grim Mower - gouache

gouache, 2017
available, 7.5"x11"

      Just a fun little piece to get back into gouache. I haven't done anything in gouache in a while. More to come.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

39 Cadillac - watercolor

watercolor, 2017
nfs, 11"x15"

      Loosening up on car paintings always feels like a double-edged blade. I'm inclined to render cars photographically as I did for several years. But, as I've mentioned here before, I no longer want to be a camera; I want to interpret and paint loosely. So, sometimes I try to split the difference and render some parts tightly and some loosely. Baby steps. The grillwork on this one is loose partly out of necessity. If I were painting this on a full sheet or even a half, I might have been more exact in the execution of all that grill chrome. I've done it before. But, at this size I'm not sure my hand is that steady. So, we went loose and gave the impression of lots of chrome grill tines (for lack of a better word). The yellow is a factory color of the period, I think, though the original color probably wasn't so bright. The original isn't for sale because my daughter expressed an interest in it when it was still in progress -- mostly because her favorite color is yellow.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

67 Camaro RS #2 - watercolor

watercolor, 2017
nfs, 11"x15"

      When the recipient of this commission of his first car saw it he immediately had to have another for his father since they shared the car. Works for me. Of course, no two paintings are identical. So, there are a lot of differences between the two, some things are better on the first one, some are better on this one. Overall, I might be a little happier with this one than the first one.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

'51 Nose - watercolor

watercolor, 2017
available, 8"x10"

      This probably should be called "Rusty Cadi Redux" because I've painted this particular image before - back in 2011 (Rusty Cadi). The original was auctioned off for the local United Way a few years ago. But I've always liked the reference photo and thought it would be fun to revisit it in a slightly looser style. So, here it is, though the style isn't much looser than the first attempt.