The Anatomy of a Painting

I have been asked many times: "How long does it take you to do a painting?"  So for those that have wondered I have added this page. 


I was called and asked if I could do a painting of a locomotive that was never built.  As I had done this many times before there was no problem with the idea.  I was sent the builders drawings of the locomotive.  It is of an ALCO C636P or the Passenger version of the C636.  The designers at ALCO put a cowling on the locomotive and put a steam generator in the unit.  My client thought it looked "rad" and wanted to see how it would look as a Southern Pacific unit.

This is the sketch I came up with as to how the C636P would have looked.  I chose the area of the Pequop mountains of eastern Nevada.  The time of year would be spring.  Talking with the client we figured that the locomotive would be in the 6070 series.  I first drew the locomotive as per the plans but as most SP locomotives had snowplows, I quickly roughed one in to see how it would look.   


This is the first day of work.  Mainly it is just placing the locomotive and train in the space that the client dictates in this case 14" x 28."  I also lightly sketch in the background profile from photos of the area the train is running.

Day 2:  The paint starts to fly.  I also thought that since the SP had a unique light package, that I would add it to the front of the locomotive.  At this stage I had planned to have the train be #22 which was an eastbound mail train that ran from Oakland to Ogden.


Day 3:  Most of the background is in except for the upper lefthand corner.  The scenery is mostly roughed in but as it is a watercolor I need to get it right the first time.  I add the shadows and tree lines to hilight the train.


Day 4: I start on the locomotive.  As I am making something that was never built I needed to check how other SP units wore the paint scheme and also how other ALCO Century series locomotives had the intakes and lovers arranged.  I also was looking at ALCO PAs and EMD FP 45s for ideas for the cowling.

Day 5:  The locomotive takes shape but needs to be refined.  I also got a call from the client stating he wanted me to put a dome in the consist.  Therefore the train went from #22 to #28 the Overland Limited.

Day 6:  The locomotive was going along fine and I threw some color in the back to see how the train would look, with the dome.

Day 7:  The locomotive is close to the final set up before it can be lettered.  I did turn the lights on however.  I also didn't like the way the train in the back looked so I moved the cars around.  This looked better to me but there was still much detailing I needed to do and the background in the upper corner was starting to knaw at me.

Day 8:  I finished the train and the foreground. I even finished the upper left hand corner! The client wanted exhaust which I added but did not want the signal line pole at the left of the painting.  The client wanted the marker lights to be on depicting a "first" section of the train.  I chose the locomotive numbers to be 6074 lead unit and 6071 as the trailing unit.

Day 9:  This is the finished painting.  Darks touched up, lettering touched up, scenery touched up, signal pole gone and my signiture added.   Done!

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