Splendid!

What a wonderful piece for your layout room!

Congrats.

nice intro to the layout

the painting looks great and was a superb idea.

I like it

Very cool.

I love Photo-Realism

Was the artist working from an existing photograph?

Very nice!!

That is a great way to set the mood for the layout I really am impressed with the quality of the work.  I would also say the pricing is very reasonable!!

Photo-Realism

Thank you all very much.

Yes he was.  Here's the Erik Rasmussen photo that inspired the painting, from  http://www.iaisrailfans.org/gallery/CBvisit_5Jun2006/iais628e_mcpherson .

Share his contact information?

Very nice!  Would you share Frank's contact information?  He may have more commissions in his future!

Geof

Contact info

Thank you!  His email address is in the very last paragraph of my initial post.  That's the only way I've ever communicated with him.

IAIS's West End - A new "front door" for the layout

Joe,

Everything you do on your layout is so wonderful. Thank You.  

Tom

Updated contact info

FYI, Frank e-mailed me after I posted this and said that his Yahoo address is no longer active.  Please use only fjgrizel@aol.com to contact him.

Thank you!

Thank you all very much for the nice comments.  I sent Frank a link to this thread so he's able to see them as well.

Very kind of you Tom!  Thank you sir!

Is that really a GP7M???

or is it the GP7 with the Paducah hood?    I think it should be a GP8M....lol

Seriously, what an awesome 'preview' for people walking through the door.    Nothing quite that nice, but I finally got the walls down to the basement repainted after drywall repair.   I am now in the process of hanging photos and large pencil railroad drawings on the walls to make people sure of why they are going downstairs.

What's to be said: WOW!

What's to be said: WOW!

Holy smokes!

That is what we call the icing on the cake.

Looks terrific, Joe Mike

Looks terrific, Joe

Mike

Thank you

Thank you all very much my friends.

He he he...GP7M is what the Rock Island (pre-Paducah hood) and IAIS called it.  Take a RI GP7, add a couple grade crossing accidents with gravel trucks, throw in an EMD factory short hood kit and the long hood off an IAIS (ex-ICG) GP8, shake well, and voila!  Here she is on Feb. 2, 2002, a few days after being reactivated post-rebuild.

Home at last

The painting arrived Friday and looks even better in person than what Frank's nice photo indicated, so I was excited to get it framed and hung.  That finally happened today, so I thought i'd share a pic of it in its new home.  It would benefit from additional lighting, and I'll be reviewing options for adding that.  My thanks to Scott Thornton for the image enhancements!

In the distance, where the gray Homasote splines are visible, is the future location of the same scene on the layout.

Beautiful

What a brilliant idea! No doubt, this will make the entrance to your layout room look grand. How long did it take the artist to paint it?

Time to paint

Hi Hunter - Frank was in the progress of moving while he painted this, and my painting also involved some unique complexities, so I'm not sure that the time it took him - about 4-1/2 months - is representative of his typical work.  If anyone's interested in contracting with Frank, I'd encourage you to contact him at the email address at the top of this thread for more info.

Beautiful!

Beautiful work at an exceptional price! I've got an old photograph of the area framed and hung in my layout room, but a painting has way more class!

Painting

Joe that is a beautiful painting. I admire artists that can make it look like a photo and for $400 a real bargain.

                                                                                                                                               Ray.

Thank you

Thanks very much Matt and Ray!  I've really enjoyed Frank's work.  Every time I walk in the layout room and turn on the lights, I'm still very pleasantly surprised at what his painting adds to that "first impression", at least for me.

Very nice, Joe!

Didn't a photo of that same bridge accompany your MRP story a few years back? 

Anyways, it sure says "heaven" -- I mean "Iowa" -- to me.

Paul

Good memory, given that it's been over 5 years since that came out!  I'm impressed, Paul.  Here's the Dan Munson photo that I believe was used in that article.

Same here!  I'm looking forward to modeling it, hopefully starting next month.