Again with the cars?!

So this is a little glimpse at how my studio work comes together, I'll try and do more from the beginning. Before I break away from the vehicle motif for a while, thought I'd show my latest hot off the easel endeavor. This is, I believe a 55 Chevy, from the comments on Facebook about it. It's a 24x36" oil on linen panel. With subjects this detailed and on the larger panels, I usually start with a drawing on the canvas. I sometimes work on a toned canvas, but on this one I just started right in. I'll draw over the main lines of the subject with burnt sienna, and immediately wash in my shadow areas with this thinned paint as well. From there it's laying in the background tones to begin playing off the color I want to use in the subject. Now, the fun begins as I take a selection of colors from my palette and work over the car, making sure to keep values in their proper place. Once light and shade are established, work hard to keep them firmly established. As more strokes of paint go on, there is a tendency to lose that relationship, due to the nature of oil paint, and the addition of more subtle value shifts. I'll usually get to about 95% done, and then let the painting rest for a week or so. When I return to it, I have a fresh eye, and can hopefully catch any glaring miscues, though sometimes it takes another set of eyes all together to catch them. Unfortunately, painting is a lonely profession, so I have to do all kinds of tricks to become more objective. I'll flip the painting upside down, look at it through a mirror, take a phone pic and look at it in miniature, I even have a reducing lens (which looks like a magnifying glass but does the opposite). Sometimes you just have to put it out there and see the reaction to it. Anyway, the painting is resting now at 98% done, I'd say... or it may be ready for a signature. I'll know in a week or 2.

24x36" untitled for now.