1935 FORD V8 48

First, this was the most fun I've had painting. The painting is from a photo that I took at the Eugene Celebration but I failed to note the model and year of the car. So I started searching for it on the Internet. I could see what looked like a Ford emblem on the front so I typed in "1935 Ford", just guessing at the year (although, hey!, it says 1935 right on the license plate) and . . . voila! . . . I discovered the entire world of 1935 Ford buffs. "So Biff wants to be a buff." I was surprised that the bells and horns on the front of the car are original and maybe even the greyhound hood ornament.

The drawing took about 3 hours and a lot of erasing to get the curved shapes to look right. Then I jumped in and started on one area at a time. First the left headlight, then the front left fender, then the bells and horns. The red car that is reflected in the side of the Ford was tricky. I didn't want it to look like the Ford had a red door, but the reflection is pretty bright. I simplified the reflection on the fender but did include the three figures (the middle one is me taking the picture). I like how those figures came out in that they appear to be bathed in sunlight. I also like the shadow on the ground in the lower-right. I debated on whether to leave the upper-right background white, but decided the light purple makes the car jump forward.

I'm going to enter this painting in the Springfield Mayor's Art Show the end of this week.

PORTLAND'S OLD TOWN

(Reference photo at right, painting above... click painting to enlarge)
One of the things that I've learned is not to paint everything literally. By editing the subject matter of what I'm painting, whether it be live or a photo, I can improve the composition. An object doesn't necessarily need to be that shade of green or green at all nor does the object have to be in the painting. With this painting of a street in the Old Town District of Portland, Oregon, I made several modifications from the picture at the right. As you compare the picture to the painting below you can see I dropped out a lot of the extraneous detail around the bus stop, left out the cars in the background, deleted two pedestrians and added one of my own and painted only one set of street lights. I also moved the mural down to make the sky visible above the building.

I've tried to capture the light cascading in from the right with bright spots on the cable car and bus stand roof and with the shadows.

This is the first painting where I've been satisfied with the people I've painted in a scene.

WINE AND CHEESE

(click image to see enlargement)
I think from the beginning this composition wasn't that strong. There seems to be too much space to the far left and the objects at the bottom of the painting are too small and similar in size. I tried to make the left side of the background more interesting by adding the abstract red and purple images. The grapes don't look like I'd want them to look, but I do like the glass and the bottle.

It took me two attempts to get the drawing done correctly. I actually started painting the first drawing before I realized that the proportions were wrong. So I turned the paper over and started again. The total drawing and painting time for this one was about 7 hours.