This is the original photograph. I got it from Syncrude's site. The reasons why I chose this photo (after looking at quite a few!) are:

• (1) it had a man in there, so you can see the scale of the truck. If you just see the truck alone, it's hard to comprehend how huge it is.
• (2) It faces right, and I wanted it to facing the other tractor picture (magazine layout lessons).
• (3) It's reasonably simple and clear, plus it has some nice blue sky and dark ground to play with.

I wanted to exaggerate the truck a bit, so I ran it through a perspective (circle) distortion filter just a little, and I also put in a more dramatic high-contrast sky, just to play with the composition.

When I paint, I usually put both the original photo and the distortion up on my easel for reference. The original is for detail, and the distortion is for colors and shapes.

I sketch in the major shapes with pencil, and go over the pencil in Payne's grey. I don't want to put in too much detail at this point, just get a general sense of where things are.

Fun with the sky! Here's five year old Jack posing alongside. He likes it, too.

I had also put on a little molding paste on the hill and on the ground. Not too much, though, just enough to pick up some texture and highlights.

Adding in a bit more detail on the sky (purple and yellow ochre highlights) plus the ground underpainting - mostly umber and sienna.

The clouds became very defined and shaped; I figure that's okay, since I think the truck will be, too.

Refine and fine-tune the shading on the truck and add some blues and blacks to the ground. I figure it reflects the sky, anyway, and all of a sudden it looked a lot more oil-sandy. Good, that stays. I added more red to the body of the truck to pick up the used/rusty look of it.

Next steps (not too much at this point):

• Add detail - decals, ladder, railings, man.
• Fine tune edges and tires.
• Fine tune rock and ground (concentrate highlights)
• Paint sides of canvas. It's a very deep-sided canvas. I wasn't sure whether to black it out (seems to be the typical artist convention), or try and carry the picture over. I like seeing all three dimensions, so I think I'll carry it over, unless I get lazy.

March 18, 2006: Done! Really, it was just adding the detail on the truck (decals and railings) and some minor highlight adjustments here and there. I did the decals freehand with a very fine watercolor brush, a bit at a time. There's some distortion, but it's okay.

I like this one a lot - particularly the oilsand-y ground. That looks good, and the very large, square (24" x 24" ) canvas suits the subject.