When someone orders a painting or a drawing in order to illustrate the cover of a book it is always a pleasure and, at the same time, a matter of pride: a kind a work that will last forever! I enthusiastically accepted the assignment: an oil painting for the cover of a book written by my friend Michel Lozares Sanchez. The author tells in full detail the history of the Douglas C-54 Skymaster on duty in the Spanish Air Force. He is an excellent modeller and an accurate researcher devoted to all matters related to aviation. He has also has been carrying out tireless work in a new field named ‘aero-archaeology’ (researching and cataloguing crashed or abandoned aircraft and recovering interesting historical remains).
As a matter of fact, these aircraft had had always very plain and unobtrusive painting schemes so I focussed on the thin lines of those nice four-engine and used nearly a side view. I added a much cloudy sky and gave some quite subtle general lighting using greys and orange-yellowish shades to depict the sunset.
I painted this ‘Tucan’ a few years ago and met Antonio Aragon who designed both the cover and the back cover of the book. Antonio is a painter and a graphics designer, we attended together painting classes in the school ‘El Estudio’.
michel2884@yahoo.com