STARTING THE 1955 C600 TRUCK

Here is a photo my husband took of a 1955 C600 truck in Guilford, Indiana. 

I changed it to black and white so I could see the values more clearly. Then I sketched it out and studied the details. Even though I may not use all the tiny details, I wanted to understand more about the vehicle before painting it. I asked questions about what some items were used for; I looked up Ford medallions and emblems on Google; and I looked up more detailed pictures of what this would look like. Then I created a picture on tracing paper and shaded in my darkest values and my midtones. I am NOT mechanical, so when I tackle something like this, I want to know all I can going in. 

You can see 5 Things Realistic Painters Do Well on Mind of Watercolor youtube channel

I miskited the chrome parts and anything that looked very white and sharp edged. I miskited the windshield wipers and mirrors, even tho some of that will be dark. I just don't want to paint around all those tiny things.

Then with burnt sienna and French Ultra Marine, I painted in the darkest darks. This helps me sometimes to see where I'm going in a picture. The dark under the front bumper is hard edged near the bumper, but fades softly toward the ground. I wanted it jagged because I want to put grass underneath. (The truck will eventually be put in a field)

For the window, I wet the window area, lay in a faint wash of turquoise, then while wet, I put in some ultramarine (but I wish I'd used cobalt) to darken the top of the window and create the illusion of the back and side windows. I added a little pink to the right side of the window and in the back window.

Cobalt teal blue with a little orange in it helped create the basic truck color. I wanted to show 3 ways of doing rust:

1. Wet in wet. Paint the item with the local color, then while wet, add burnt sienna in the rust areas, then add a bit of ultramarine to create rust. (See this on fender on my left).

2. Rust over a dry painted area. (That is what I will do on the door area...it wasn't dry yet)

3. Rust on a white area. The fender on my right was burnt sienna with ultramarine added to create rust. Also on the top of the cab. 

Choose the method that works best for you. 

The steering wheel and window details. Inside the front window I want the steering wheel to show, but not be too obvious. All I did was wet the wheel, and gradually dab in drab color until it got to be the shade I wanted. I don't want it hard edged, or it will not look like it is behind the glass.