A discussion on railway art.

[96701]

I'm sitting in a room with 8 prints by J E Wigston of traction engines. He does trains as well.

 

http://2509-silverlink.deviantart.com/art/Railfest-2012-J-E-Wigston-6201-307744789

 

Very well.

 

Not editted, just realised my grammar is wrong

Edited October 3, 2013 by 96701

[Baby Deltic]

Malcolm Root: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=malcolm+root&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:%7Breferrer:source?%7D&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ilRNUvf_BuGd0QWOhIBw&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1440&bih=775&dpr=1

I've been lucky each year with a present from my local village shopkeeper of a Midlands engineering company's calendar with his paintings on each sheet. I've kept them all with a view to framing the best one day!

I know Malcolm, and I agree all of his prints are worthy of framing. He's a big fan of Cuneo.

[Sir Hadyn]

2 of John Wigston's prints of ploughing engines in our lounge, along with 4 of my daubings.

 

Grew up with a copy of Cuneo's "Night King" in my dentist's practice - would love a decent print of that one day...

[Londontram]

As well as all those you've already talked about I do love the 1920s/1930s art deco style poster art from London transport, nothing seems to sum up that inter war period better and my fondest memory of childhood train travel was the posters above the luggage racks on the old carriages showing far away places like Devon and Cornwall, they had an innocence about them like the covers of the old lady bird books where the sun was always shining and kids were building sandcastles on pastel coloured golden sanded beaches    

[coachmann]

In my GWR-fan days I painted this but cannot remember which year during the 1960s. It's a water-colour painting of Ranelagh Road servicing depot off a black & white photo. I gave the Castle a Hawksworth Tender as it was my fav variant at the time but got the loco number wrong I think...

 

[Guest]

I have a couple of prints by Frank Mitchell, an artist who now lives on the north coast of New South Wales. His interest is steam trains but he has also done a lot of other work.

 

http://www.steamtrainart.com.au/

 

Worth a look. No connection, just a satisfied customer

[Chameleon]

Another fan of Cuneo here, I have a good collection of limited ed. Prints by him, some signed. I also have a full sized print of "Giants Refreshed" which has to be my all time fav picture. I would love an original but they go for over £2000 at auction!

Jonathan Clay is another artist I like. I have commissioned a couple of paintings by him over the years.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

...and another vote for Cuneo. Not very imaginitive of me I know.

 

I am lucky enough to own an original water colour by a chap called John Yardley. It is of a loco yard, with a number of 'impressionistic' locomotives (one looks remarkably like an ex SR N class).

[westerner]

Agree with Rob about Don Breckon. I do have three of his prints in the Railway Room

[Jon020]

I always admire the artist that can capture colour so well; Malcolm is one of them and his work is very captivating... as are many others, all with differing styles from the poster-like majesty of Matthew Cousins (on here) to the atmosphere of Cuneo and precision of others too many to mention. I'll just stick with my B&W... but I really ought to pick up the pencils again one day.

 

 

Jon

[vyv123]

ADMIN Contravention of forum classifieds/advertising policy

Edited March 1, 2014 by Mod6

[CathcartCircle]

Big fan of both Cuneo and David Shepherd and have a few prints of both but not originals! lol! I also mess about with my photography to make my own art as part of an ongoing project!

[Black Sheep]

As a graphic designer I find myself drawn more to railway posters and that kind of graphical work than the more traditional (but stunning) examples already shown in this thread.

 

I'm slowly building a small collection of railway posters of places I've been to from the 30's - 50's that I like

 

One particular favourite is 'See Britain by train' by Abram Games who became a poster designer almost by accident during WW2

 

©Estate of Abram Games

[steve fay]

I've always been a big fan of Phillip D Hawkins.

I've got a few of his pictures to go up in the railway room

Edited May 1, 2014 by steve fay

[TonyMay]

Points I would like to make:

 

1. I think that some railway paintings, tend towards saccharine and have an unnatural feel.  There's always a boring clean green GWR engine running along a sunny branchline and a bloody family with a little boy and girl standing on a style waving to the train while on the road their Austin seven is parked up in just the right place.  Just the thing you want on a Wedgwood plate (limited edition of 1,000 firing days in which they can mass produce a thousand of the bloody things per firing day.  Yours truly will be one in a million...).  These are possibly mostly aimed at non-railway enthusiasts?  Whatever the market, they are basically complete tat and only suitable for use at Greek weddings.

 

2. Draw a human face a little bit out of proportion and it still looks like a face and still kinda looks like the sitter.  Locomotives however are bloody difficult to draw or paint.  Get one bit out of proportion, and it'll look very wrong to the trained eye.

 

3. Rivet counters will also notice if you've made mistakes, so for the pros detailed research from photographs is necessary.  If you're just painting for yourself rule 1 applies.  Something completely wrong such as Flying Scotsman on the Royal Albert Bridge, is just however amateurish.

 

4. Ignore point 2 & 3 if you're an impressionist.

 

 

5. Which brings us onto the final point - the better paintings capture aspects of the railway that aren't saccharine.  See point 1 - saccharine has been done to death already.  Good paintings capture character of the railway - the industrial grime, or the big landscapes of Northern England.  They use light in a way that sets the scene, e.g. storm lighting (which is the sunshine you get with very changeable weather, you get quite a warm lit shafts of sunshine but with really dark skies).  Or early morning/late evening sunset/sunrise light which is low and very golden.  Or snow.  Or night-time.  Or just grey overcast and smog (see point about industrial grime).

Edited March 3, 2014 by TonyMay

[TonyMay]

Thinking a bit more about this.

 

The composition aspects are similar to railway photography, so a good railway artist should probably do some practical photography as well.  Also, the point about unusual lighting conditions above is also the same with photography.

 

Would be interested in hearing how those with experience in this area achieve correct proportioning and especially any advice for anyone wanting to have a go.  I assume that especially to begin with, copying directly from a photograph  (although there are potential copyright issues with this, so you might want to use your own).  Pencil sketches seem to be a good idea.  There appear to be various techniques for transferring the proportions of one image to another, including gridding, tracing paper, projection, and using a pantograph.

[steve fay]

In my GWR-fan days I painted this but cannot remember which year during the 1960s. It's a water-colour painting of Ranelagh Road servicing depot off a black & white photo. I gave the Castle a Hawksworth Tender as it was my fav variant at the time but got the loco number wrong I think...

 

WEB Castle painting.jpg

I have a room under construction that that painting would be very at home in!!!!

 

Well I've had a Disagree!!! Considering the room is being built to house a layout of Ranelgh Bridge I thought it was quite appropriate

Edited May 1, 2014 by steve fay

[MJI]

I like quite a few.

 

I have been to a GRA exhibition, only time I have been to an exhibition as such (as opposed to displays at the local NT properties).

 

I get most of my prints in kit form, and they need assembly, usually 500 or 1000 parts.

 

I do have a signed David Shepard print from when I met him at Toddington.

 

I have a limited edition print of 35006 as I won top prize in a raffle.

[will5210]

Another vote for Philip D Hawkins here. I got his book for a tenner in The Works.

 

This is one of my faves of his: http://www.philipdhawkins.co.uk/railway-paintings/night-wolf.html

[Steve Williams]

This may well be common knowledge by now, although I couldn't find any reference to it on RMWeb, but, whilst searching for an image, I came across the obituary for Don Breckon who died  2 October 2013. I had no idea he had died. Apparently, he was 77yrs old and had suffered from Alzheimer' disease for a number of years, ceasing painting about ten years prior to his death.

[bluebottle]

This is today's featured picture on the Wikipedia home page:

 

^{"City of Workers is an oil painting on canvas completed by the Berlin Secessionist painter Hans Baluschek in 1920. It depicts a dark and dirty working class sector of the German capital, Berlin, in which industrial smoke dominates the skyline and the few lights of windows are drowned in the gloom. The 48.44 × 36.25 in (123 × 92.1 cm) work is held at the Milwaukee Art Museum." It is in the Public Domain.}

 

 

A powerful piece - it makes the old West Riding look almost idyllic!

Edited October 17, 2017 by bluebottle

[Co-tr-Paul]

For me, soft spot for Don Brekon. Mainly GWR biased. Sucker for anything in the snow though !

[Mark Carne]

Emile Andre Shefer,that's all I'm saying!

 

Mark

[Rob Pulham]

I'm a great fan of Chris Pulham (well I would be wouldn't I  ) I feel extremely privileged to live in a house full of original art works.

 

This is her latest work which was on exhibition at Kidderminster Railway Museum until last Sunday, it also featured in an article on Chris in last month's Heritage Railway magazine.

 

 

It's now back on my lounge wall

[BobM]

This superb painting by Philip Hawkins always makes me recall the walk down the steps on to platform 7 at Birmingham Snow Hill.....I am saving up for a print one day....I am so lucky to be the proud owner of that famous platform '7' sign, on display and hanging for all to stand beneath once more within the Engine House at Highley on the SVR....

No copyright infringement is intended with reproducing this image....(copyright remains with Philip D. Hawkins)

 

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by BobM