Getting the Feel of the F4 Jet

To give the story of the prisoner and the pilot context, I needed to paint a larger scene, but just like a stage set, the spotlight needed to be on the main characters – the prison window and the inverted jet. Complicating capturing the story was how do you freeze frame a jet traveling in excess of 600 mph when the afterburners are on yet give the impression of motion. Given the jet was probably the biggest challenge in the painting, I decided I would make a separate small painting of just the jet as a way to work out any issues before adding the jet to the master painting. I also wanted to have the two pilots “sign off” on the accuracy of my depiction of the plane.

In my last blog on this project, I included a variety of reference photos I used. For the plane, I chose this one as my main reference.

I decided my plane study would be on a small canvas because in the full painting the plane will be small (6” x 8”) by comparison to the full scene. I sent the painting below to all of the review team including both the prisoner (who was himself a pilot) and the F4 pilot who flew over the prison. Everyone approved the jet.

Critiques

Because this painting is so important, I asked a couple of different artists to critique my work. I am grateful to Kelley Sanford and Dawn Whitelaw for their feedback. I considered both and incorporated some of what each had to offer.

Next

I have the painting to the point I would describe as essentially finished. Depending on everyone’s progress with COVID-19, the next step is to meet with everyone on the review team face to face to have them see the real painting versus photos and give them the opportunity to suggest any final tweaks before finalizing and signing. We are almost there.