Three Train Engines

Three Train engines.
Acrylic on Masonite. 48" x 36".
(sold)

The trains kept getting larger- this canvas is four feet wide. I really like the colors and the bold graphics on the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and Santa Fe engines. I wish Amtrak had come up with a jazzy color scheme- maybe that would increase their ridership.
My reference photo for this was a 5 x 3 inch postcard I bought at the museum, a stock photo of these engines lined up in an urban train yard. I repositioned them out on a rural prairie and naturally had to throw in some buffalo, partially to keep this from being too symmetrical. Adding diagonal clouds also served to add suggested motion kept the composition from being too still.

Southern Pacific No. 10

Southern Pacific No. 10.
Acrylic on Canvas. 44" x 37".

Years ago, I took a trip on the Coast Starlight train from Seattle to California. The route ran through the snowy coastal mountain ranges as well as along the ocean. Amazing scenery. I kept a sketchbook and did a lot of drawings of that trip.
While staying near Sacramento, I dropped in to take a look at the train museum and emerged with a head full of trains and a handful of postcards. I really like the saturated pastel colors of the old linen cards produced in the 1940's and decided I needed to make a large version for myself. The promotional images often showed a train running through an orange grove, something I never actually witnessed but I liked the idea. Maybe that happened further south down the line.

Train Engine 1701

Train Engine 1701.
Acrylic on canvas. 36" x 29".
(sold)

This is an older painting. I don't recall the exact source for the image other than it was from a small black and white photo of a train crew taking a break to pose on a steam engine, probably around the early 1900's. The photo had been cropped off at the top.
I liked the composition, scale, perspective and strong shadows. I also wondered how it would look in color, and decided to add my own color.
In retrospect I wish I had gone to the trouble of researching the engine and included the stack at the top of the engine- it still disturbs me that I cropped it where I did.