At the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin

Iron Range No. 29, 14 x 10 inch ink, watercolor and colored pencil drawing by George C. Clark    AVAILABLE

I sketched No. 29 in July up in Wisconsin.  Recently I finished the drawing, adding color and the Milwaukee Road track inspection car on a parallel track in the foreground. 

An Early Experiment

The Locomotive, 9 x 11 inch stone block lithograph by George C. Clark  AVAILABLE
(#6 from a signed and numbered edition of 10 plus 2 artist's proofs)

Back in the 1970s I experimented with various printmaking media.  I studied etching and woodcut and linoleum cut techniques with Howard Albert at the Pauper's Press in Chicago.  BettyAnn Mocek taught me a photomechanical process to make silkscreen prints from black-and-white line art at Evanston Art Center.  To learn stone block and metal plate lithography I went to a printmakers' collective where Bill Cass taught techniques and rented studio time for me to use the presses.  

The first thing Bill taught me was how to remove an earlier image from a litho stone and grind the surface smooth to accept my new image.  When my stone was ready, Bill did a little demonstration on another stone of how you could make marks with litho pencils and crayons and liquid litho inks in various ways to get different effects.  After he printed his block, he invited me to have a go at the block I had prepared and try the techniques he had showed me.

I hadn't prepared anything or given much thought to subject matter, but I didn't want to waste my laboriously-prepared stone on random lines or squiggles, so I took a litho pencil and started to draw an image I pulled out of my head.  It turned out to be this vaguely British old-fashioned steam locomotive.  I tried adding tones with various scribbling and hatching methods, drew with and without a straightedge, applied ink with a brush as well as spattered from a toothbrush, and made smoke by rubbing dry litho pigment into the stone with a soft cloth.  Finally I made some white streaks by scraping back into the stone with a steel tool.  When we proofed the result, I was pleased enough with it to get some buff-colored Stonehenge paper and print an edition of 10 plus 2 artist's proofs.  I had only saved one of these prints, but I recently inherited #6 when a relative I had gifted it to decades ago passed away.

This is not my first piece a railroad art, but it predates my formal AGE OF IRON series by almost 20 years.   

Field Trip to the Illinois Railway Museum

George C. Clark sketching with high school art students and their teacher  at the Illinois Railway Museum yesterday morning.  (photos by Pat Clark)

My friend Ray at the Illinois Railway Museum said he had two busloads of high school art and photography students from Crystal Lake coming to the museum on a field trip and asked if I would be interested in coming out to do a little demonstration and talk to them.  I said I'd be glad to do it and Pat and I drove out yesterday on a cool and rainy morning.  Their teachers introduced the handful of students who were into "traditional art" as opposed to photography and I gave them a little talk about the art I do and sent them off to explore and sketch or photograph while I set to work.  They came back after an hour and a half, and in the photos above I'm showing them my drawing and talking about materials and techniques and working methods.  Some of them were too shy to say much, but I could tell from the interest and questions of others that some at least have the potential to become artists.  It made me feel good about an education system that in too many places seems plagued with problems and inadequacies. 

A.S.R.A. Exhibition in Westfield, New York

George C. Clark with his painting Saddle-tank Switch Engine at the Station Art Gallery September 20, 2014  
(photo by Pat Clark)

As predicted in the previous post, Pat and I attended the opening reception of the first annual members' exhibition of the American Society of Railway Artists at the Station Art Gallery in Westfield, New York.  The opening went very well, and I returned the next day to have this photo of me with my painting taken and to thank Katherine and Rob Galbraith, the gallery's proprietors, for hosting the exhibition.  This gallery is particularly appropriate for railway art because it is located in a beautifully restored former New York Central passenger station.  The main line of the CSX railroad (formerly the New York Central) still runs past the building and you can see the reflection of a passing train on the glass covering my painting. 

American Society of Railway Artists First Annual Exhibition September 19 through October 12, 2014

Saddle-tank Switch Engine, 14 x 10 inch watercolor by George C. Clark    AVAILABLE

My watercolor painting Saddle-tank Switch Engine will be one of 26 artworks featured in the first annual national exhibition by members of the American Society of Railway Artists, held at The Station Art Gallery, 11 English Street in Westfield, New York near the shore of Lake Erie in the Chautauqua wine-growing region.  Everyone is invited to the opening reception on Friday, September 19 from 6 to 9pm.  After the opening, regular gallery hours will be 2 to 5pm on Fridays, 11am to 4pm on Saturdays, and 1 to 4pm on Sundays through October 12, 2014.  I and a number of other exhibiting artists will be attending the opening reception.

Artist Drives Diesel Locomotive at Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum

Diesel Switch Engine No. 11

George C. Clark at the Throttle   (photo by Patricia Clark)

Normally I only post my railroad paintings and drawings on this blog, but today I'm going to break that pattern to post a couple of photos of a fun railroading experience I enjoyed recently. For my birthday my wife Pat got me an opportunity to take part in the Guest Engineer program at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana, located about 85 miles southeast of Chicago.  On August 10 we drove out there and I had a lesson in how to operate No. 11, a diesel switch engine that formerly shunted freight cars at a steel mill.  My instructor was John, a fully qualified engineer seen in the yellow shirt in the photo.  Another museum volunteer acted as conductor, grade-level crossing guard, and switchman, throwing the manual switches as needed.

I got to drive No. 11 for half an hour up and down the museum's own right-of-way.   It was a lot of fun for a person who has been a rail fan all his life and is now a founding member of the American Society of Railroad Artists.  Thank you, Pat!

Rust Gicleé Print Available at Longbranch Gallery in Mineral Point, Wisconsin

My archival limited edition print Rust described in the previous post can now be purchased at the Longbranch Gallery, 203 Commerce Street in historic Mineral Point, Wisconsin.   The 12 x 16 inch print is priced at $120 framed or $75 unframed.  The original oil painting on which the print was based was painted on-site at the Illinois Railway Museum and is now in the permanent collection of the Illinois State Museums.