There is, of course, more emotion in some paintings than others. This painting holds a lot of emotion for me, as I was going through a difficult time when it was painted. That is probably why I believe it is more successful that some of the others. While I want to leave the emotional interpretation of these paintings to the viewers, I would like to talk a little more about my process for this one.
New Class For Modern Travel was both carefully planned out and wonderfully spontaneous. As with A Night Train, I prepared a panel with a recessed pocket in which a smaller painting would fit. On the panel I first carefully painted a sign or advertisement with text reading, "New Class For Modern Travel". Under the text I drew a quick line drawing in paint of a Baltimore and Ohio locomotive, known as a president series pacific. I then painted the sign out. This incorporated a general advertising look of the 1920s, then almost completely covered by an abstract painting of the same train in all its modern glory. Then, in the reassessed pocket, the same train again from the same angle in a more representational form, which shows the pure beauty of the industrial and commercial design of the time. The word modern is easily discernible, and the words new and class are also legible if you look closely.
