Friday, January 4, 2013

Texas School Boy, 1942

I've long been intrigued by this photo of a Texas School Boy, c 1942.  Over the long holiday weekend, I decided to try it on a smaller scale.  The actual photo is somewhat different, and has several other boys in it.  I made a couple of sketches and decided to paint the one boy and move him to the left.  This left quite a bit of area to the right with nothing in it.  The original canvas is 9 x 12, but I am going to crop it to 9 x 9 as I have done in this photo.

I used a fair amount of walnut oil medium in the painting, which makes it very glossy.  I was also painting on a canvas that I had gessoed several times in addition to the manufacturer's gesso.  This makes for a hard non-absorbent surface which I am growing to like.  The paint sits on the surface and retains gorgeous color in most cases. The walnut oil drys very slowly, which allows for several sessions over a couple of days of wet blending.  That was helpful.  I will probably continue to develop the overalls a bit, and the windows bug me so I may revisit them as well, but here is the work in progress as of today.
Texas School Boy 1942  (work in progress)  Oil on 9" x 9" canvas panel

3 comments :

  1. Love this one! I look forward to seeing the finished piece.

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  2. What an outstanding painting! The modeling is superb and the boy's expression has a wonderful nuisance to it. Love that flesh tone and the subdued coloring that so enhances the whole painting's feeling. Man, this is first rate stuff.

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  3. Thank you Kansas! You know that it's your paintings and drawings that have have intrigued me with these historical photos. This one was by photographer John Vashon and was taken in St. Augustine Texas in 1942 or 43. Thanks for the great comments...

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