Air Bus

Yesterday there was a little delay before our Virgin flight could push back from the gate at San Francisco. So out came the watercolors.


The watercolor notebook and miniature pan set fit across my lap. I held the drawing tools in my left hand, but I kept dropping them. The lady behind me was nice and handed me the stuff I dropped.


This was the view out my window to the adjacent aircraft. Most of the fuselage was in shadow. Since it was a white color with high specularity it picked up a lot of reflected light: warm from below, and cool from above in almost equal brightness.

I used a dark blue colored pencil for the accents, staying well above black. I used gouache only for the highlight flares and the tops of the orange rubber posts. The whole painting took a half hour.


As everyone was getting off the plane, I showed the painting to the flight crew. Captain Mike Lawson invited me into the cockpit of the Airbus A320. Thanks, Mike!

Media: Rublev watercolor set, Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils, Moleskine Watercolor Notebook, and various sizes of flat watercolor brushes.