A Spell Check Answered.

 

"Along Wait"

By James Swanson  / Pastor Rick

30" x 24" oil on canvas

See the journey of this painting. Read about the painting steps below.

 Ever look at a simple word and all of a sudden you don't recognize it? That's where spell check comes in right? This artist is a pretty bad speller and I don't trust spell check to help me out either.

Traveler Pastor Rick

And that is how we meet our new Traveler Pastor Rick.

I was working on a blog for a painting and was thinking that the word "winding" just didn't look right. So I Googled the word to see if I was right, or an idiot. Well, I wasn't an idiot, and for my reward I was blessed to see some winding roads images that Google bestowed on me.

All these photo are from Pastor Rick's photo stream.

They were some of  Pastor Rick"s photos that I came upon, and knew I had to contact Rick and find out more.

Photos are from Pastor Rick's North Dakota album

Traveler Pastor Rick story: This old car and windmill are located on what was once a farmstead in rural Towner County, ND. All of the buildings are gone, only the windmill, and some rusty machinery remain. You can see the windmill from a nearby highway that I frequently travel. So I came to photograph the windmill and found the other treasures there as well.

The photo of Pastor Ricks that I will be working with.

Traveler Painting "Along Wait" The name for this painting came from the rust and age of the car of the scene. I really loved Pastor Ricks photo. I could feel the lonely coldness of the spot with the sun ready to set one more time on the scene. That's what I wanted to capture in this painting. Here are the steps I took in making this painting.

I started with a fairly large canvas for me 30"x24". I want the open space in the painting to mean something and making a large painting really helps get that across. Here I've already sketched in the composition with a mixture of Venetian red and Burnt Sienna.

My color palette. I premix a lot of colors before I paint. Here you can see the colors that will go up on the painting.

The dark colors are painted in first. The darks in the car are a warm dark a lot of red in there. I liked the way it went on and plan not to touch the area too much and leave it kind of pure.

I decided to paint the foreground in first. I wanted to give the car some structure before it rusted away on me.

I worked my way to the back on this painting.  Putting in the sky to finish the block-in.

The sky in this painting had to be painted in and finished off because the wind vane was going to be laid right on top of it and no mistakes could be made. I marked the spot where the wind vane was going to end up and then started building it piece by piece.

My palette knife came in real handy in putting up the wind vane.

Done. I wanted to keep this painting fresh, so I put a time limit on myself to keep me from trying to noodle out everything.

Details from the painting.

"Along Wait"

By James Swanson  / Pastor Rick

30" x 24" oil on canvas

Spell check is a really good thing for me and I wish  every time I check on a word I could meet a nice Traveler like Pastor Rick. To see more of Pastor Ricks photos go here and tell him I sent ya. Thanks Rick and I look forward to painting some more  of North Dakota.

The Artist and The Traveler are always on the look out for new Travelers. If you see one let me know here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org

Until next time so long.