Watercolor: Hard Driving Wheels - 14" x 14"

What impressed me about this steam locomotive was the power of its driving wheels, which I tried to express in this watercolor. I first used a masking-pouring technique, but then needed to come back with a brush to get the values right across the painting. Awarded Honorable Mention in the Architecture and Machinery category of the WASH Painting of the Year 2020 competition. Exhibited in the in the juried "Go with the Flow" WASH Open Show, August 29-Sept 25, 2021. 201024. Watercolor, 14" x 14".

Where Vernon St. meets Atlantic St. in downtown Roseville, CA is the 70-ton, 4-6-0 Southern Pacific Locomotive #2252, retired in 1956 after nearly sixty years of freight and later fire-fighting service along the Donner Pass line over the Sierra Nevada mountains. I wonder how many times it climbed Donner Pass (7,057 ft.) during its service? It was manufactured in March 1897 as a T-1 class locomotive by Crooks Locomotive & machine Company of Patterson, NJ.