"Ned Garver" - Acrylic Paint / 8x10 / 2003

This painting is based on a 1951 Bowman baseball card of former All-Star and 20-game winner, Ned Garver.  Mr. Garver is a friend of my family, and a great guy.  Ned, with the St. Louis Browns, became the first, and to my knowledge, only pitcher to win 20+ games for a team that lost 100+ games in a season.  As you can see, I started out with all the basic stuff...minor shading, and an almost finished background.  This was, one of my quickest works, but that's because of, mostly, the size.

Here, I started to add the shading and color to his face and a bit more to his hat.  In retrospect, I wish I would have purchased oil paints to paint this picture -- because of how well oils blend.  But, I'm still very happy with the results.  I did leave out the "name" box that normally appeared on all the 1951 Bowman baseball cards.  I felt it would take away from the overall picture, and it would be rather pointless to put it in there.  The picture at right, is the final product, with very vivid color.  I'm actually thinking of making prints of this painting, so if you're interested at all, use my e-mail address listed at the bottom, or refer to my contact page.