Friday, June 27, 2008

Toy Car

I bought a bunch of old antique toys on Ebay with the intention of doing some oil studies. I was looking for aged surfaces and worn patinas. I found this wonderfully paint-chipped, tin car for $3.95...I love Ebay.

Anyhoot, this is the first of the small oil studies of toys. This is the monochromatic under painting (what's that?)....The monochromatic under painting is the first stage of my painting process. It's where I use only one color, in this case, Burnt Umber to establish my values (lights and darks) and to get a feel for the overall composition before I add a full range of colors. I used this stage to also explore some varied brush work (note the soft lost edge on the top of the car as apposed to the harder line at the bottom of the car) It's a compartmentalized way of doing things that divides the process into thoughtful little steps. I didn't make it up, this process is more than 500 years old. I'm looking forward to slapping some color on this when it dries.

2 comments:

Frank Gardner said...

I have an old toy car just like that one. Mine is an odd cool green color.
I like this as a subject for you Todd.

Todd Bonita said...

Thanks Frank, I'm glad you feel it's a good subject for me, I bought a bunch of these little cars and plan on doing a series of them. Fingers crossed.