Painting cars has never been something that I have done much of since my goal is to be out in nature as much as possible, but I was invited to a Plein Air meet-up at the California Auto Museum and decided it would be a good challenge. Martha Esch, the host of the event, had arranged for our "payment" into the museum to be a quick sketch on a note card to be donated to the museum. What an awesome idea! Of course my quick sketch ended up taking me almost 30 minutes.
It was quite an honor being able to go inside the museum to paint, as long as we didn't spill or clean our brushes like Bob Ross ( ha ha!) There are so many great cars there from a Delorean to a Dodge Pacer. The cars are placed close together though so it was hard to get a good spot to paint. I found a Model T that was in a nice quiet corner. The museum lighting was the hardest part to work with. The model T had a flat finish so reflection was minimal. But then determining how much detail to add or omit was challenging as well. Overall I think it turned out well.
Check out more sketches from this trip to the California Auto Museum
here.
Just to challenge myself, I signed up for an annual self portrait contest put on by the Plein Aire artists of Sacramento, sponsored by Martha Esch. I had not done a self portrait since college and was not sure where to start. I sat down in front of the mirror and did a quick pencil sketch. I was so pleased with how it turned out, I just left it alone. I then proceeded to copy my sketch onto watercolor paper with paint. After a few brush strokes, I realized my mistake...I had not put any sketch marks onto the paper to help with proportion and it became more of an experiment figuring out the layering of color and highlights, and not about proportion. 
