Cable Car Named Desire of San Francisco.

 "Cable Car of San Francisco"

By James Swanson / Traveler Galen

12"x16" oil on canvas

In this journey of travel and painting, I've met a lot a fantastic people and made some great new friends.

Traveler Galen

Our new Traveler in this series is Galen. Traveler Galen puts the word world in world traveler.  He has touch all four corners of this plant and then some.

Greenland

I came a cross Traveler Galen when I was trying to find someone who has been to Greenland. I couldn't find any one I knew so I had to do some free styling to find someone. And I found Galen.

San Francisco Cable car, All photos are from Galen's website.

Galen had some nice photos of Greenland and when I checked out his site I was flabbergasted. His website is a encyclopedia of travel trips. There really isn't a place on this earth that he hasn't been.
Traveler Galen's Tale:The driving force behind the San Francisco cable car system came from a man who witnessed a horrible accident on a typically damp summer day in 1869. Andrew Smith Hallidie saw the toll slippery grades could extract when a horse- drawn streetcar slid backwards under its heavy load. 

The turn around

The steep slope with wet cobblestones and a heavily weighted vehicle combined to drag five horses to their deaths. Although such a sight would stun anyone, Hallidie and his partners had the know-how to do something about the problem. 

End of the line.

Traveler Painting " Cable Car of San Francisco"Out of all the places that Galen has been to pick from, and I pick cable cars in San Fran, go figure?

Galen's photo that I'll be drawing inspiration from.

 I've spent days looking at  Galen's in depth travel site and I think I just needed to get a painting under my belt to get to get things moving. Anyways it won't be the last we see of Galen I'm sure.
The painting steps to Cable Car of San Francisco.

The rough sketch on canvas to get me started. Galen fad a real nice shot here or me to work off of.

The dark colors are painted in after that.

Sorry, I got into this painting and missed taking a few painting steps. But what I was thinking about at this stage was trying to capture the warmth and cool shadows of the street. The buildings, well when I painted them in I just wanted to keep them loose gooey.

Here the painting is all blocked-in. There is still a lot of things that need to be worked out yet, but I know  where this painting is going.

Most of the details are in the now. But there is a few color adjustments yet to be made. 

Here I've started to concentrate on the cable car more. Defining the car and the people a long with the ground shadow is what was needed.

This painting is pretty much there now.

 Details from the Painting.

 

 

 

Framed and ready to go.

 "Cable Car of San Francisco"

By James Swanson / Traveler Galen

12"x16" oil on canvas

I thought this would be a good painting to start Galen and us off on, and I think I was right. Gale the Traveler is off to Africa right now, and promises to have some more adventures tales for us when he gets back. Thanks Galen and good hunting. If you have a day check out Galen's Travel website here.
this art project is always hunting for new travelers with stories to tell. If you have one you would like to share pass it along to us here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org

Next up a wedding to remember, until then bon voyage!