Much of the artwork that I produce is done on a commission basis, with my clients coming to me with ideas or themes that they would like to see either as a drawing or an oil painting. I prefer to discuss with my clients either by phone, email, or in person, the ideas that they have and how I could portray them in two-dimensional form for them. If the subject is something that I do not have any reference material of, I will need my clients to produce photos, line drawings, maps, or anything else that might aid in the project.

Here I am sitting down with one of my clients and discussing the details of a new drawing that he wants to commission me to do for him. In this case, the drawing is of a CHESAPEAKE & OHIO 'Allegheny' steam locomotive at Hadley Yard in West Virginia. He has many good photos in two books that he is willing to lend to me while I do this artwork for him.

Here is an original oil painting that I am working on. This is to be a NEW YORK CENTRAL J-3 class 'Hudson' type steam locomotive passing the tail end of the "20TH CENTURY LIMITED" on a moonlit winter night. 18" X 24" overall dimension. With paintings, I still have to do a line drawing in pencil to work out the proportions, get the details right, as well as the perspective before I commit oil to the canvas. In this case, since the painting is of a night scene and the background is so dark, I used a white chalk pencil to transfer my drawing to the canvas. I use tracing paper to trace my line drawing done for the painting, tape this tracing paper sheet to the top of the canvas where it will not interfere with applying the paint. Then I put another sheet that has been shaded with the chalk pencil behind the image that I want to trace. Then starting with the sky and background, I completely paint everything from far back (in perspective) to the front to properly overlap each element in the scene.

Centuries passing in the night.

Contact us to set up an initial consultation