Friday, November 2, 2012

Out to Pasture

While waiting for my wife this morning I decided to head over to Kalamazoo's Air Zoo museum.

The Air Zoo houses an excellent collection of aircraft and aircraft related items. As I'm retired from 20 years in the Air Force I do have a lot of interest in things that fly. So I went to look at the aircraft that are on static display. The birds in this sketch are parked next to the building where Air Zoo staff members work on restoring various aircraft. The planes are long retired...and are showing their age.

First in the row is an F-84, behind it is a Lear Jet, and last is a B-57. I thought the repeating tail pattern was interesting.


After sketching retirees I decided it would be interesting to do a detail sketch of the F-84's nose wheel. Here it is. It was interesting, but have to say my hands got cold drawing...it was only 43 this morning.


9 comments:

  1. Nice work

    The nose wheel feels like a good subject for a poster because its not something you'd expect to see on somebody's wall. When I stop to think about it, besides the engines, wings, and a sober pilot,the wheels' importance is quite great.

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    1. Thanks, I really like doing sketches like this. You're right about the wheels!

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  2. Great to see these 2 side by side. I find the close up particularly intriguing.

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    1. Marcia...thanks. Think you're right about the gloves with no fingers!

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  3. I LOVE these, Dave! We're seeing C-130s flying low over our neighborhood on occasion, I'd love the chance to sketch one up close. Of course I need to go to KC's air museum...

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    1. Kate, C-130s are neat. When I was in officer's training I got to fly in one up front with the pilots. The view, with all the glass, was terrific! Another great view was out the boom operator's window in the back end of a KC-135 when it was refueling planes from my Air Guard base.

      Also...I'm trying to get permission from the Air Zoo to work inside the barrier ropes they have 'round the planes. Figured it would be nice if I could haul in my folding chair and not sit on the floor! I talked to their PR/Marketing person last week and have to get back to her to see what progress she's made.

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    2. Dave, I've found I often get permission of this like that if I mention I'm a member of an international sketchers group and that the drawings will appear on a national blog, too. They'll appreciate the free publicity, I think.

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  4. So many of the blogs I follow are women. It's nice to see somebody doing such a beautiful job of sketching 'guy stuff'.

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