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.

5 comments:

  1. Your cars are wonderful...happy ppf...xx

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  2. I have a problem with loosening up with my painting too. It's really hard for my because I want to capture every detail. I love your attention to detail of this piece.

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  3. Looser is better! Yes. I agree. I am working towards the same goals. Love that car. Since I usually paint aceos (2.5 x 3.5 inches) it gets really hard to be loose and still have a subject and not an abstract. LOL.

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  4. this is absolutely spectacularly rendered. NOT photographic, painterly. Beautiful work. I worry about painting too perfectly and I work hard to "throw paint around" and find a style that has style, lol. I always try to remember that there are millions of photographs and I don't have to be one of them, I can be me and me can and should show in my work. Always a hard thing to remember when being a perfectionist is in your blood. The yellow is awesome by the way! Visiting from PPF.

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