[Everard]

This is my first painting (excluding digital paintings) since 1984 or 85. It is based on a photo that Leroy Grannis took at the 1974 U.S. nationals, held at Escape Country, California, in December. It is my first ever painting using acrylics (although I switched to acrylics for my plastic modelling a year or two ago) and my first painting on proper canvas.

Larger image (too large for this forum, which seems to expand images):
https://everardcunion.files.wordpress.c ... resize.jpg

My painting of a Sun IV hang glider is based on a 1975 photo by Bettina Gray of her son Bill Liscomb, who tried out many of the latest designs of the time. (The original photo includes just such a partial eclipse of the moon.) It is my second painting using acrylic on canvas and my second painting (excluding digital paintings) since 1984 or 1985.

Larger:
https://everardcunion.files.wordpress.c ... size-1.jpg

When it was work in progress:

Larger:
https://everardcunion.files.wordpress.c ... iv_2ec.jpg

[Bob Kuczewski]

Beautiful artwork!!!








Sorry about the fixed image sizes of the forum. I find that a width somewhere around 720 looks pretty good on most devices. Here's one of your linked images at that size:

BobWills720.png (590.6 KiB) Viewed 4267 times

[Everard]

Thanks Bob!


This is my third painting this century. It is one I have had in mind since I first saw the photo on which it is based in early 1975.

Here is my web page about it (with link to the full size photo of the painting) on my personal web site Brave Guys and Beautiful Dolls:
Painting the Eagle III

And here is my page about the real thing:
Scientific American hang glider in Hang Gliding History

[Bob Kuczewski]

Great hang gliding history pages: https://hghistory.org/

It's very nicely organized.  

[KaiMartin]

Certainly a matter of taste - but i like the painting of the Sun VI best. The colour of the sail literally shines like a sun. Well done, Everard!

The description of the Eagle III on everardcunion.com makes me curious:
Why did the concept not catch on? Did it fail to deliver good flying? Or was it just too complicated with all the contraptions and a full blown tail plane?

---<)kaimartin(>---

[Everard]

Thanks Bob. It should be well organized: I spent the last 20 years as a technical author (and before that as a programmer) so I have no excuse for making a mess of it.

KaiMartin:

I also like the colors of the Sun IV. They are completely made up though. Bettina Gray's photo is black and white. (At least it was printed in the magazine in black and white.) The acrylic paints (a beginner set I bought) are really good.

I think your supposition about the Eagle III is correct. Like the rigids of the time, it was too complicated. (Just my opinion given that I never even saw the real thing.) In addition, although the harness and control frame made it look 'familiar' to Rogallo pilots, it seems to me it was totally dependent on the 'warperons' and rudder for turn control: The elevator control wires seem to be close under the pilot's right arm.

All I can do is speculate, but painting the picture caused me to study the thing in detail. I put some of my thoughts on it in Painting the Eagle III on my personal interests web site, and some -- those with a firmer footing -- I included in Scientific American hang glider on Hang Gliding History. There is some duplication, but I hope not too much.

Some of my speculation about its controlability in pitch is based on my experience of one of my own experimental hang gliders, which, like the Eagle III, had a 'free floating' camber. (It is speculation nonetheless.)

It would be great to have some direct info from Mike Markowski and Tom Peghiny of course. However, I have not discovered a way of contacting Mike. (Tom I know is aware of the painting.)

[Everard]

This is my fourth painting in the 21st century:



Full size photo

This one is not all my work. The backdrop is a painting I bought at a charity shop for £2 in about 2015. I do not know whether it is a print or an original. It is on textured material stretched on a wooden frame, like canvas, but it is shiny like vinyl. The paint or ink is soluble — as I discovered when I tried to clean several years of dust off it with a damp cloth before I started work on it…

The location is Val d’Orcia Tuscany, Italy. Plenty of photos taken at that exact spot are available online. I do not know if hang gliders ever flew there.

The main glider is a standard Rogallo made by Manta of Oakland, California, and the farther one is a Brock 82 standard Rogallo made by Ultralight Products of El Segundo, Los Angeles, California. Both gliders are of 1973. I lightened the sky and changed the backdrop in other minor ways. The paint or ink of the backdrop is shinier than the acrylic paint I used. To nullify the resulting disparity in reflectivity, I coated it all with acrylic matt varnish.

The painting is 47 x 16 inches (120 x 40 cm).

[KaiMartin]

Your fourth painting is again a very nice one. It is again the colours of the gliders that strike me the most. In this painting it is the Manta that got the best of it. I like how the blue does not quite blend with the blueish background of the mist.

[KaiMartin]

Everard, may I suggest a template for a future painting? How about this one:

In my early days as an wikipedian I found the German article on hang gliding could do with more images. So I searched the web and asked for permission to use (images must be free to copy and even be changed to be allowed in Wikipedia). Miles Fagerly kindly allowed this image to be published under the proper open license. The image illustrates the history section ever since. BTW, Joe Faust apparently added a paragraph to the description of the image at wiki commons

Here is a link to the image in wiki commons with less compressed versions: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MilesFagerlie_early_hg_photo.jpg

In in this actual photo the tips of the glider almost touch the margin. As a painting I'd imagine the clouds to extend more to the sides to make the glider even more floating.

All the best,

---<)kaimartin(>---

[Everard]

Although the colors of that photo have faded somewhat, I don't think redoing it as a painting would add much to it. I have several photos to use as templates for future paintings, but thanks for the idea anyway.

Yes, the text on that wiki page does read a bit like 'Faust speak'! Joe is one of our living legends. I suspect that his slightly wacky style obscures his great contributions to early hang glider development.