The subject is the long wait we had one day on a convoy, when one of the vehicles got stuck on a bridge, half hanging over the edge, which delayed our movement for nine hours. We sat in the vehicle, stuck in with our gear, trying not to be bored out of our skulls, and sometimes trying to sleep. Here is pictured HM2 Amesquita, Cpl Rogers, and Sgt Miller of CLB8, trying to sleep. The jumble of Marine and gear lends itself to a sketchy process, with the paint and strokes as jumbled as the gear..!
First, the rough sketch (with enough detail to make the composition a success). It's on toned, gessoed Arches 300 lb. watercolor paper (a great weight for watercolor as well as oil sketching);
In process, the roughing out, or "blocking in"-- at this point I try to keep what works, expressing in as few strokes as I can, as much detail as possible. It's really all about suggesting rather than slaving over detail. A good sketch is a collection of "happy accidents". Also note that I applied an overall Imprimatura of a warm earthy tone before blocking in.
Final stage: Note, it's not fully detailed, but some is left for the viewer to put together...
Here is a detail of the window, with the light coming in-- notice the suggestion of detail, and the attempts at making the image have a little life and freshness by not over-working the detail...
Detail of Sgt Miller: Note that the hand and face are just a set of simple strokes jumbled together to suggest detail.
5 comments:
when one of the vehicles got stuck on a bridge, half hanging over the edge,
I would not want to have been the drive when the Gunny came around to ask me why I tried to drive off the bridge.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 08/27/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
This is wonderful work. You are right, just enough details to let the viewer finish the interpretation. Thank you again, for sharing your work and doing the great job you do.
Yeah, I'm sure the gunny wasn't pleased-- but the unit handling these convoys, while filled with good people, was inexperienced.
We had a couple of these instances where a vehicle got high-centered, half off a bridge(and I was in one of those vehicles)!
More often, though, a vehicle would get stuck in the sand, and we'd have to wait for it to get towed out by a seven-ton.
Nice sketch. This is in oil? I haven't messed with oil just watercolor mostly. I'm thinking about trying oil painting, it would be a big change from watercolor. :) Can't wait to see more.
~Kirby
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