Harley

It has been a very long time since I have posted a painting.  I have been working on this one for several months.  I haven't had a lot of time to paint.  This one took much longer than I anticipated.  I was working from a photo that a friend gave me of her husband's motorcycle.  I have posted the photo below.  You can see the photo was taken on a cloudy fall day.  I was going to just copy the photo, but decided it was not very exciting.  The owner of the Harley ventures up to Sturgis, SD for the big bike rally every few years.  I did some research online and found some pics of the area around Sturgis, so I placed the bike in that landscape. However,  that decision brought lots of problems - lighting and shadows.  I actually had to go to the Harley store and take some photos in the late afternoon.  Then I couldn't figure out the handlebar that was coming toward the viewer. To solve that problem I ordered a toy Harley from Amazon that was identical to the one in the original photo. I finally got it all worked out.  I am not completely thrilled with the cast shadow, but I repainted it three times, so I'm sticking to this one.

The photo

Jerry's Bike
9" x 12"
Oil on panel