“Baby Boomer” is my newest painting, finished and framed just in time to include it with my 17 other original paintings on their way to my Solo Exhibition in Clarksville TN, which opens on October 5th, 2021.
Time is eating away at this old vehicle and I was inspired to feature it in a painting since I first spotted it parked behind a commercial building near where I live in SE Tennessee. I knew that the fabulous colors and textures of the rust, corroded paint, broken tail light, exposed hardware and reflective chrome would present the type of painting challenges I love. The complementary colors of blue and orange attracted me too. But the clincher was in the emblems: the way you could still read “Studebaker” by the rust which had formed around the missing word, the dangling sections of letters, and the fabulous rusty logo of the Cherokee dealership just screamed to be painted. The fact that the car came from Knoxville, the closest large city to my home, was the icing!
It was finally time to weed through my many reference photos of the old vehicle, taken at different times in various lighting and from many angles, and determine the best way to compose my painting. I create art in watercolors, acrylics, or inks, on paper, canvas or clay panels, picking the combination I think will work best for a given subject. I wasn’t sure exactly how I would proceed with this Studebaker (except with caution!) by choosing to use transparent watercolor on Aquabord, but it seemed the best combination to capture this image realistically.
It’s my largest watercolor on Aquabord™ panel to date, measuring 30” x 22”, which is the standard size of watercolor paper I use. Aquabord panels, with their white clay surface, are designed to be used with water media, but the surface reacts differently than paper. Aquabord has many advantages over watercolor paper, but it takes some getting used to - watch for my future video with my tips and techniques. For my watercolors, I chose Golden's QoR brand, which really look vibrant on the Aquabord surface. It was slow going to include so many details, but once I finished I was delighted I had used this combination of art materials, capturing the image just as I aimed to.
A few of my many reference photos of the old Studebaker
I like to get to know my subjects so I did some online research on Studebaker Larks, looking at many photos to try to determine the specifics of this old car. I knew from examining the vehicle itself that it was a two-door Studebaker Lark VI (6-cylinder) sedan, and I made an educated guess that it was a 1961 model, based on the headlight and tail lights, the front grill, the logo emblem, and other details. When I looked up paint colors for that model year I identified this one as Riviera Blue. Fortunately, I was able to get my ID confirmed by the Archivist at the Studebaker National Museum.
The Studebaker Lark was a compact car produced by Studebaker in South Bend, Indiana, from 1959 to 1966. I considered titling my painting “What a Lark!” but I didn’t show the Lark emblem (on the right rear of the car) so some might not get the connection. That lead to the title “Baby Boomer,” since the official baby-boomer generation was born from 1946-1964. Even Wilbur and his talking horse “Mr. Ed” had Studebaker Lark, a 1962 Skytop model!
I’ve been concentrating my “art” time on preparing for my big show, falling behind on blogs posts about several new paintings. Watch for more coming soon!
