As with many of my paintings, I start out with a favorite toy from the past. I had seen this tin car on eBay a few times but the price was off the charts. I finally bought this one because of its color scheme and it was in decent shape.

In 1961, the Ford Motor Company designed a concept car for that year's Detroit Car Show. It was a gyroscopic controlled car of the future. It remained a concept car and it was obviously never produced for sale. The rights to reproduce it were obtained by a Japanese toy company and it made a couple of battery operated versions.

I have always loved the Hopperesque feelings of the quiet evening on the downtown street, looking at window displays, lit up like large TV sets. These staged window scenes are theatrically lit gems that entice the passerby to stop and dream of owning that glittering object behind the glass. I had wanted to create my own window someday with what I thought would be a classic old car on display until I saw this tin toy car. Not unlike something out of a Jetson's cartoon, the Ford Gyron looked like it should be floating in the air, defying gravity.

So, in my world, a young father, after a long day at work, is walking the sidewalk in town with his son alongside in his peddle car. He stops in front of the large fishbowl, and dreams of owning this amazing vehicle, hovering silently on the showroom floor. As his awe increases, his son's pressed metal car rises off the sidewalk, mimicking the wonder in his father's eyes. Hence the title of the painting, "Like Father, Like Son."

Here is sketch, drawn in my Photoshop software.

Here is the car I will be using for the son's vehicle...Studebaker? 

My canvas is 40" x 50" and is the finest portrait linen, stretched by hand over the best wooden stretcher bars with a cross support.

I've begun the painting at the top of the canvas, mainly because I haven't photographed my father and son models as of yet. That is scheduled to take place today if the sun is shining. I've mixed a warm mixture of yellow, red and black to my white for the color of the clerestory windows.