Harbor Line - Bridge Shadow

"Pacific Harbor Line 20 (Bridge Shadow)"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

The Pacific Harbor Line, the workhorse of the LA  Harbor. This newer one is part of the low emission line of locomotives for the move towards a greener port. Black and shiny as tar with striking graphics, they don't blend in, they stand out. Not graceful looking, they look like they mean business. The back end diagonals point down, the front point up to distinguish front from rear when seen head on. Its side panel graphics angling forward. So a nod of beautiful work to the designers of these burly beasts of burden.

My Pacific Harbor Line series. This one, the #20, is a remote control locomotive and is often parked here near the base of the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
Here it sits in the afternoon at the shadow of the Vincent Thomas Bridge as the marine layer begins to settle in over the port.136

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...Port in a Storm

"Union Pacific 4259"   SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
Randy Higbee Gallery, randyhigbeegallery.com 

The 4259 headed into the port and right into an approaching storm, the last bit of sunlight illuminating the well worn bright yellow locomotive. I like the lightening bolt red stripe of the Union Pacific and that is what inspired me to portray the locomotive charging head-on into a storm.117

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Low Growling Murmur

*with compositional overlay

"Harbor Line #72 (47 Bridge)"
oil on panel, 2010
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
NFS

In a low growling murmur, the #72 slowly crawls through the harbor on an almost imperceptible uphill grade, pulling a string of rail cars loaded with cargo containers, the 47 bridge as it's backdrop. Late in the afternoon, the sun from the left puts the sides in shadow... jet black. One of those days where the atmosphere is heavy and hazy but bright.

This location is wide open, a staging area for huge piles of dirt, asphalt and concrete used throughout the harbor for all the various construction and renovation projects.

The slight upward tilt as well as the heavy section of bridge bearing down convey the weight of the long train being pulled, even if unseen. Well fit to this task, the sturdy black locomotive dominates the horizontal composition.

Anatomy of a painting... structurally the image is made up of horizontal bands (rectangles), triangles and the forward leaning angles of the stripes. All serve the subject. As indicated in the *overlay above, the triangles point in the direction of the action, moving the train forward and through the composition from left to right. The stripes too seem to push the train forward, a thought the designers must have had in mind.

The horizontal bands of the foreground left simple but punctuated with tufts of grass and dashes of paint to set up implied lines also moving left to right. The blunt shape of the locomotive echoed by the same shapes of the trucks, it's smaller commerce cousins, in the background approaching the bridge.75
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Melancholy

"Harbor Line #50 (Catalina Pacific Concrete)"  SOLD

oil on panel, 2010

3½" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)

Two posts ago I featured one of the newer locomotives that works the LA Harbor. Here I painted one of the older ones, being replaced as it has become outdated, but currently still running the tracks.

You can see the primary difference between the two generations... this one has solid red ends which don't identify front from rear like the dramatic angled stripes of it's successor. It's also longer, the new being shorter, stouter and probably more powerful even as a low emission model. I'm sure a matter of technological efficiency.

However, it's length gives it the grace of a limousine, elongated without looking gangly. But still powerful looking with it's boxy square front end. Always the workhorse, just a different breed.

It's seen here against part of the old shut down Catalina Pacific Concrete plant from my post 'The Dying Day', a hint of melancholy as it moves away from the sun and into the plants shadow for eventual retirement.

It is well used. No longer shiny, missing vents at the rear, scratches like well earned scars from years of service. But surprisingly, it did not look run down, it seemed to have a lot of life left in it, if not outmoded for greener technology.66

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Workhorse

"Union Pacific 8518"

oil on panel, 2009

5 x 7 (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

private collection

This first painting is one subject you will be seeing more of. A great subject, trains are still the workhorse of commerce even in this modern age of information. And of course trains can still be seen against virtually every landscape imaginable. Most of mine will be seen with industrial and the desert backdrops of southern California.1

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