Essential machines, a story

"Emotive power," 5 x 7 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press paper

I wouldn't be here, if it weren't for trains.
Today's #WorldWatercolorMonth prompt was "Machine," and at first I was baffled for a subject.
But not for long, as I walked down the hall and saw my Dad's scratchboard of a Rock Island steam locomotive at the Fort Worth roundtable in the snow.

Dad's scratchboard of a locomotive at Fort Worth

As a kid, I was there when he made the first sketch in the summer. But I didn't know the emotions going through his head when we went there. He later turned it into the scratchboard
I do now. It's no wonder I've been attracted to trains, especially steam locomotives, for so long. And I've painted several, usually greeting cards for good friends Roy and Jill Kelsey. Roy is also a train buff.
Why are trains so important to me? Because they led to my birth.
See, when Dad was 18, newly graduated from high school, in the midst of the Depression, he and a friend from red clay Oklahoma town of Comanche, hopped Rock Island freights to go to Juarez to celebrate.
Coming back, as they "changed trains" in Tucumcari, Dad slipped while trying to board a moving boxcar. It sliced off his right leg beneath the knee and one small finger.
Had that not happened, he probably would have gone to war with three of his brothers. He might not have come home--they did. But even if he did, I would not have been born 12 years later.
So to me, steam locomotives are essential machines. Thus today's quick little watercolor, out of my imagination, "E-motive Power."

All Aboard to Memories--Watercolor

"All Aboard to Memories," 5 x 7 watercolor card

If I have a favorite Christmas movie, it has to be "Polar Express."
It's no wonder to folks who know me, because trains have captivated me since I can remember. Especially steam trains, though the moan of diesel locomotive horns, not as emotive as steam whistles, on the BNSF main line two miles away still awaken my wandering imagination.
I've written and tried to paint steam trains often, usually once a year like this Christmas card for good friends and real rail fans, Roy and Jill Kelsey.
Where did it start? Probably when I was about five years old and went with my Dad to the Rock Island turntable in Fort Worth where he sketched a drawing I still have. 
A few years later, he transformed it into a magnificent scratchboard, that I have hanging in our house right outside my "studio/office." We used prints of it as family Christmas cards.
I've written about this before. Here's the link: All aboard for the journeys
Here's Dad's scratchboard:

"All aboard" for the journeys

All aboard, 5 by 7 card

Trains have captivated me since I was a little boy. This card, from a previous year for dear friends who are also train loves, captures my desire to go.
The composition isn't original, but based on my Dad's drawing and scratchboard that became our Christmas card almost 60 years ago. 
I was a little boy with Dad when we visited the turntable at Fort Worth long ago, when he did the original drawing (it wasn't winter), and still have it, along with the winter scene (scratchboard is when the artist covers a white board with black and "scratches" out the image--I can't imagine the talent and patience that takes).
I've written about it before on this blog. See the story from last year, also titled "Journeys", the same as today before I even looked back to find it. 
Apparently I'm not the only one who loves trains, because every time I put "All aboard" in a headline, my page hits go way up--notice the list of favorite posts in the sidebar.
The mystery of heading out, traveling, journeying must be the allure of trains.

Fort Worth turntable, 11 by 13  scratchboard, Terrence Miller Clark

Framed, on our wall

Christmas card and cabin season nears

Our cabin, 8 by 10 photo

I found this copy of one of our family's Christmas cards recently. Dad always sent out Christmas cards, usually like this--a photo of our cabin in the Manzano Mountains southeast of Albuquerque, or one of his pieces of artwork, like the scratchboard snow scene of a Rock Island locomotive taking on water in Fort Worth.
 After a few early years when the kids were young, we didn't send out many.  But now that I've started painting, this photo explains why I was thinking about needing to get started. I realize where that primal urge to send out a few personal cards comes from. And my attraction to cabins, in my paintings and just generally in writing and dreams. 
 It's November, and I've already got the blank cards ready to paint, and the checklist of friends and family.
Now if I just had a cabin in the mountains to retreat to, put wood in the stove, look out that big north-facing picture window, a little adult beverage, and start painting.