Early in my life my family was involved in the model railroading hobby. Therefore I was also interested. Its really a discussion of the true logistics of transportation among other things. A focus in this hobby is a preoccupation with the model being prototypical. Meaning everything about the scene is correct for the period of time being portrayed. Similar to a movie set from the past. They even do it to the point of running the trains on what is called a fast clock which speeds up travel time so you can run the actual train schedules that happened in the period your layout depicts.
This mindset has bled over into my artistic expression. A good example of this is "the Queen and I" watercolor on paper. What does all that have to do with Bob Ross? For those that don't know the name he is pop culture icon due to his long running PBS show "the Joy of Painting." If not familiar sit and enjoy an episode. He is relaxing to watch even if you don't paint.
Bob Ross in almost every episode discusses how "in your world you can have it any way you want", as he is magically dropping in an amazing "happy little" pine tree every few seconds showing you how easy art can be. His statement was about being free to create the world as you want to see it on the canvas. This has been an important concept in my artistic expression.
"The Queen and I" is a great example of both of these mindsets at play simultaneously. What I wanted "in my world" is to paint a Steam operated tugboat assisting the Queen Mary in or out of New York harbor on a full moon at night. There are no reference photos for this so it was a matter of staging the scene as I saw fit. However my model railroading self had to determine that a steam tug and a this boat could have potentially been together in this spot. This was late in the career of steam technology but many were still operating due to being so well designed for what they did. The full moon may or may not be possible as I did not look up the moon for every visit Queen Mary was present in New York. The skyline was my loose "interpretation" of period correct Manhattan. So I was able to bow to the Bob Ross side as well as the prototypical side.
This painting was one of the rare times I destroyed a painting surface and had to start completely over. The painting you see here is a second try. The original surface was matboard which did not survive my ill fated background sky attempt.
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