Thursday, August 10, 2006

Expressionist Train




This is a train parked down by the LA river on the other side of the Chinatown area. I was doing a typical nocturne photo jaunt when I found it. When I did the painting later in studio, I decided to try and follow some of the color distortions that come from amateur night photography were light goes warm. I pushed that to the point were it kind of had a expressionist feeling. Oil 11x14 on linen.

This one time for Steve:

24 Comments:

Blogger glamaFez said...

I'm reading a book on expressionism, and lots of the paintings in the book have the color intensity that I see here. Emil Nolde is my favorite (see my avatar). I haven't been brave enough to try colors like this in my own painting in a long time.

2:51 PM  
Blogger aw said...

Really nice. I think the colors work well. I love the power and intensity of trains. You could push this even more as you get into the foreground/front of the train....! You could make little cottage industry in doing fabulous trains with amazing skies!

5:09 PM  
Blogger BoneDaddy said...

This is very intense. I don't know, there's just something about the reds on the locomotive that I love the hell out of. I know I used the same word on Manley's blog, but there's some kind of malevolence. If I should attribute an emotion to a non-living, man-propelled machine, I'd say the train is really pissed.

6:53 PM  
Blogger Mike Manley said...

Nice! Are you using any palette knife?
Also are you mostly mixing on the canvas or the palette--keeping a limited palette, and do you adjust that based on the subject?

7:08 PM  
Blogger Miles Thompson said...

another really beautiful and intimate look at mass - dead and yet living - far out

11:17 PM  
Blogger Steven LaRose said...

Would you ever consider showing your photographs? Or do they get destroyed?

12:00 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

Glam,

Bright colors are tough to do. What gave me the courage to push the colors in this case was I felt the painting was going wrong so why not commit suicide with a flare? After I didn’t care, it kind of came together; I was trying to hard to make subtle colors work. I learned that the darker you go the less subtly reads ... I think… At least this time.

2:02 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

thaks AW I have a few more in me.

2:10 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

Hey BG,

I find a lot of life ( and death) in machinery. I don't think Steven King was to far wrong. The malevolence is apt... trains and people don't mix. Next to cars and tanks I think they have killed more people that any other form of transportation. Remember Duel? Great little tv movie.

2:15 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

Hey Mike,

I always use pallet knife on the thin lines, and sometimes on big areas for texture, but not in this case. I'm not sure about you mixing question... But I don't pr- mix like some artists, I don't plan that far ahead. I have a palette of colors laid out form the tube when I painting out side, in studio I put out only a few colors at a time and clean off the whole shebang when I'm done. I mix each color on my palette for each new area, when enough colors are our out in my main pool of colors I don't have to go back that much to the tubes, I try and make do if I can.

2:25 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

thanks Miles,

That's exactly what trains or cars are...

2:26 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

2:28 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

I hate to destroy the mystery, but in the sprit of artistic camaraderie, I'll show one in this one time. I'll update the entry.

2:39 AM  
Blogger BoneDaddy said...

Wow, the photo is even really well done. No, I've never seen Duel, though I think now I'll have to, because now you got me curious, jackass!

3:41 AM  
Blogger Steven LaRose said...

Aw. . .I'm glad that I missed the photo. I assume that the deleted comment was yours to me, William. I didn't intend for you to destroy the mystery. I was curious if the photos loose something after the painting reaches a point. Do you discard them? Do they go into a file? Imagine trying to do this before a digital camera? Well. . . after reading brogrimm, I kinda wish I saw it. Maybe attach an image in an email.

8:44 AM  
Blogger tonypetersart said...

That's great how you pulled so much from your refrence. The photo looks quite dark, yet your painting of the train reads quite well.

11:04 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

BG-- Duel was a Steven Spielberg TV movie it was so simple and strong it got him on the map. I stared Dennis Weaver as a man menaced by a mysterious big rig that didn't seem to have a driver.

12:06 PM  
Blogger william wray said...

Steven,

The photo is up on the blog, I just edited my reply for spelling.

12:08 PM  
Blogger william wray said...

Hey Tony,

It's all there if you stare at it long enough. ;-)

12:09 PM  
Blogger Steven LaRose said...

Oh thanks, sorry about my previous comment, Blogger is acting wonky. I wasn't seeing the photo and it said that you had only five comments. I refreshed a couple times and there it is! Beautiful.

12:11 PM  
Blogger Bill Alger said...

Bill- That is truly a Satan-red train to Hell!

But a beautifully painted Satan-red train to Hell.

4:52 AM  
Blogger william wray said...

thaks Bill that's were I'm headed so I might as well get used to it.

12:00 PM  
Blogger alberto mielgo said...

beautifull colors.
I love the green areas.

3:20 AM  
Blogger Mike Wieringo said...

Absolutely wonderful, Bil.... you really capture the 'soul' of this train... you did know that trains have souls, right?

Great work!

12:15 PM  

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