IMAGE GALLERIES

AVIATION AND NAVAL ART

I first became interested in aviation and naval art in high school, and still have some of the pieces I did then in my old portfolio. What is shown here is a collection of pieces done since 1990. Many are in private collections now and are not shown in public any more.

BOMBS GONE OVER BRUNSWICK- PROCESS TO COMPLETION

In late 2010, I was invited to create an image of a Lancaster bomber for my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. The way in which the aircraft was created was left up to me. Not having completed a large scale aircraft piece in six years, I elected to use coloured pencil for my medium on 140lb. watercolour paper stock. Research took place early in March, after I had already decided on a composition. Admittedly, this was an odd way to compose the piece, but once I sorted out the aircraft, using Touchwood's Lancaster computer generated model in Poser and my own photo reference material for the background, I hunted through books and the internet until I read of an account of a Lancaster in trouble while on a raid over Brunswick sometime in 1944. Satisfied the account matched the composition, I transferred the squadron codes to the aircraft- already drawn out on the board- to create the first stage of the work shown below, as completed on a Friday.

Next, I washed in a kind of underpainting using watered down acrylics to establish a tone range for the background.

Yes, it was messy and the paper wrinkled badly at this stage. I was not bothered, however. The coloured pencils- Prismacolour, to be precise- were to be used next, and the sheer pressure of the waxy 'lead' on the paper would be enough to flatten the image and shatter more than a few pencils in the process. Detailed images follow the process as the picture progressed.

The final piece, completed the following Thursday after some 22 hours in total, looked like this...

BOMBS GONE OVER BRUNSWICK

by C.A. Seaman, copyright 2011

What follows are examples of older pieces I've completed in this theme. Watch this space, as more works will be appearing in the future...

LANDSCAPE ART

Landscape art is a great challenge to create. One of the reasons why so few pieces exist in my collection- both of which are sold to private collectors- is that a) it stresses me out doing it, and b) it is not unusual for me to have to encorporate landscapes into military or aviation subjects. Whatever the reason, I should do more...

FIGURES- PAINTED

Here are some of my figure paintings, done in the 1990s on canvas or illustration board. Strangely enough, they are all of young females. Go figure... The piece with the three girls and the model airplanes was exhibited at the National Aviation Museum in 1996. It was a study of experimentation in flight- young women who might some day become the next Roberta Bondar or Julie Payette.

FIGURES- DRAWN

Not every model who appears in a life drawing class is nude. Here are some images from various classes that illustrate this point. I may convert some of them to nudes later. It will be an interesting exercise. However, just to note for the record, the overwhelming majority of models in my life classes were nudes. I have chosen not to include those studies on the site at this time.

1990s LIFE DRAWINGS

DEMO AND CONCEPT PIECES FOR WORKS NEVER DEVELOPED

LIFE GESTURES 'ON THE FLY'

A sketch done live at a jam session, along with the two shown above. Tricky work considering how much musicians move when you are try to catch their essence on paper! However, it was great fun, and I hope to do more 'people on the fly' in the future. I watched a couple of documentaries by Albert Maysles on photography and his spotaneous work reminded me how valuable life studies like these can be.

Click here to return to the Contents page.

All images and essays printed here are copyrighted C.A. Seaman 1990-2010 and may not be reproduced with permission.
Last revised: July 03, 2011.