“THE PEACEMAKERS”: HOW A PAINTING COMES TOGETHER
The original oil painting of ‘The Peacemakers’ was one of the largest I’ve tackled… Nearly 6‘ x 3‘, it took quite a few months to complete. I’m often asked how I go about this sort of task, so in this post, I show some “in progress” photos and include some notes about the process of completing this painting...Hope you enjoy! -John
“THE PEACEMAKERS" by John Shaw 2020
More than 15 years ago, after reading the book ENOLA GAY by Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witts, I was inspired to do a painting of the Enola Gay and some its crew preparing for their historic mission. I’d actually started a concept sketch back then, but unfortunately, I’d gotten busy with a few other painting projects at the time, and it was banished to the back burner. But the idea never left! I knew one day I wanted to paint the scene, and when the time came, it would be a LARGE painting- and so it was. The original oil on canvas measures nearly 6 feet by 3 feet.
A couple years earlier, I’d had the pleasure of meeting Enola Gay’s navigator, Dutch Van Kirk, who was very enthusiastic about the concept. He was good enough to send me a few photos from back in those days. In 2004, my family and I were busy with some of the AVG Flying Tigers, who had just signed prints for us (“Summer of ’42”) in Orlando, Florida. As we were packing up prints at the end of the afternoon, AVG pilot Dick Rossi, who was sitting & chatting with someone who’d wandered in to visit his old wartime buddies, called me over and said, ‘John, there’s someone I want you to meet…”
There was something really familiar about this distinguished, white-haired gentleman with bright eyes and a pleasant smile. As Dick introduced us, before he could get the man’s name out, I realized that it was indeed General Paul Tibbets!
It was a real treat getting to meet him, especially in such an informal setting. Though a bit hard of hearing at the time, General Tibbets was very warm and approachable. After chatting for a few minutes, the desire to paint the famous mission this great veteran had flown was further kindled.
As in most cases when planning a painting, especially one that’s going to be somewhat complex, I start out with a series of rough concept sketches. After messing with various layouts, this was the final one. During this planning stage, it’s a ton of fun doing research, going on the treasure hunt for photos, info about the particular date in history I want to depict, etc. During this process, historic pictures of the people, planes & equipment, are absolute gold.
There are quite a number of photos of the Enola Gay out there, and at this beginning research phase, I was curious as to why the markings on the plane’s rudder differed. Not just the Enola Gay, but many of the other Silverplate bombers as well. I wanted to make sure that I had the correct paint job for depicting the day before the mission. I discovered that the 509th’s OFFICIAL tail markings were those with an arrowhead within a large circle. But, to confuse enemy intelligence who always tried noting markings of their adversaries’ aircraft, their rudders were temporarily repainted with the markings of other B-29 squadrons, a ‘Circle R’ in the case of the Enola Gay.
Before any paint goes on the canvas, the time-consuming process of drawing many of the major elements in pencil begins. I draw them in more detail in some areas than others. I also must plan out what must be drawn in first, and what will have to be drawn in later over top of a background I’ve already painted. In the case of this painting, the plane itself and some of the ground personnel near it would be drawn in first. I’d then begin painting the plane before adding much of the foreground figures.
From the beginning, the plan was to show Col Tibbets and his two closest crew mates, Dutch Van Kirk and Tom Ferebee as the foreground figures. There were quite a number of photos of these guys available, but most were pictures in which they were looking right at the camera, or shown at angles that weren’t helpful for depicting them more candidly. Also, I preferred not to use pictures that had been commonly seen before in most books with photos of the mission. While watching a couple of somewhat blurry black & white film footage of interviews Tibbets & Van Kirk gave the afternoon following the mission, I discovered what I considered to be some good candid expressions to shoot for. These photos show the reference photos I used from those films, and the preliminary sketches on the canvas before paint was applied.
Once I’d found candid facial shots I liked, I needed to create some reference photos of the rest of their figures to work with. I rounded together a few cheerful volunteers to be ‘body doubles’ for these; In this case, my son Hudson, his cousin Caleb and their buddy Nolan were relatively close in build to the ‘real’ guys, so with a few makeshift khaki uniforms, they became my stand-ins for the famous trio of aviators.
After reviewing the batch of photos of my cheerful body doubles, I selected some positions I felt would work with the b&w head photos of Tibbets, Van Kirk and Ferebee. Thus began the process of drawing them in pencil on the canvas. (Note that at this point, much of the background behind them had already painted in).
This photo shows how the background gets masked off while a certain area’s getting worked on, along with the photos which help me with lighting reference. When the pencil stage is finished, I spray workable fixative over it to keep the paint & thinner from dissolving it. I then add a transparent wash of Naples Yellow over the pencil area to serve as a warm undertone for the next layer which will soon be applied. A little bit of the next step is shown on Tibbets, which is the beginning of the ‘underpainting’ of tones and shadows, using an oil paint called VanDyke Brown.
As the ‘underpainting’ stage progresses, the figures begin to take on more dimension. This VanDyke brown / Naples yellow underpainting is pretty typical of how all other detailed parts of the painting will also progress. All other color will later be applied over these. I love the properties of oils, as it’s possible to make them as transparent or opaque as desired…One layer at a time. It’s a bit time-consuming, but in the end usually yields satisfactory results.
Another look at the progression of the 3 main guys in the scene at different stages.
I felt it important to include some of the other members of Enola Gay’s flight crew. Originally, I’d wanted to include copilot Bob Lewis in the scene as well, but in reading the account of some of the specific things going on at this time of day (August 5, 1945), I discovered a kind of humorous anecdote which made it historically inaccurate to place him in the scene…(more on that in a later photo).
Instead, I decided on these four crewmen…George Caron, Jacob Beser, Morris Jeppson and Wyatt Duzenbury. Beser was especially important I felt, as he was the only man who flew in both atomic missions, on August 6 and in ‘Bockscar’ on the 9th. Shown here are the reference shots for these four, and the pencil stage for them
I decided to place the four Enola Gay crewmen in a conversation with other ground personnel. Many of the photos & film of that time show Jeeps and other vehicles, so it seemed a good fit.
In this interesting shot, I’d been painting people and machines for so long, my eyes were going a bit buggy, and I needed a change of scenery. I masked all the foreground elements off and decided to get back to work on the B-29 itself, most of which I’d painted in many weeks before. (Again, this big ol’ canvas is about 6 feet wide, so nothing happens too quickly!
One of the more challenging parts of this scene (and also one of the most fun) was painting the tug in the foreground. The Cletrac M2 High-Speed tractor was one of WWII’s most prolific and dependable workhorses, and a fantastic-looking piece of machinery! There are still a fair number of these gizmos still around these days, in fact occasionally you might get to see one towing a big warbird out onto the flight line at a modern-day airshow.
Shown here are photos of some various stages while painting this cool little tractor.
One interesting note for the eagle-eyed…Note the equipment on the side of the tractor (near the MP) in the 3rd photo, and then in the 4th. It is completely different, because I caught a technical error I’d been making. I’d been using a reference photo to work from which I didn’t realize had been printed backwards! The equipment I’d been painting as in the 3rd photo is actually a mirror image of what should have been on the other side of the tractor- ugh. Glad I caught the mistake and put the correct hoses and other items in their proper place before spending too much more time on it. Of course, only a true Cletrac aficionado would have known the difference, but as they say, the devil is in the details.
As mentioned, Bob Lewis was the official pilot assigned to plane #82, and since Tibbets wanted to fly the mission, Lewis was relegated to copilot. After the bomb had been loaded, and the plane taxied into the holding area, Tibbets sent for one of the 509th’s sign painters. The guy was a bit peeved, as he was in the middle of a softball game, but reported to the Colonel as ordered. Tibbets handed him a piece of paper and told him to go "paint that “on the strike ship, real big”. (Of course, he’d written the name of his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets). Grumbling under his breath, the painter dutifully did as ordered. So in the painting, the painter has just finished the job, and is in the process of packing up his ladder, paint cans and brushes, anxious to return to the next inning.
Later that afternoon Lewis and several of the crew drove out to where “his” plane was sitting under the watchful eyes of the MPs, and when he saw the strange words scrawled across his ship, bellowed ‘What the hell is THAT doing on my plane?” He ordered the words be scrubbed off immediately; The poor guy who got chewed out informed him that it had been done in accordance to Col Tibbets’ orders. Lewis immediately stormed off to the Colonel’s office. When confronted with Lewis’ indignation, Tibbets shrugged and simply told him “I didn’t think you’d mind, Bob!”
And, the rest, of course, is history, as it’s arguably the most famous name of any airplane ever (possible exception being the Spirit of St. Louis).
I’ve found it pretty interesting in photos & film footage to see the number of people gathered nearby during this mission. It seems that all the MPs, ground personnel and other military individuals present had a definite sense that they were part of a moment that would change the course of history. I wanted to include an assortment of these in the scene. Here’s the pencil stage of some of these background figures (Incidentally, I’m including a link to some of the great silent footage which can be viewed on Youtube at the end of this album. Definitely worth checking out).
Bringing the elements from the previous pic to life. Note B-29 # 77 with the triangle “N” on the rudder. This was ‘Bockscar’, the plane which flew the 2nd atomic mission to Nagasaki 3 days after Enola Gay’s mission. I was excited to find several photos showing the two most famous Superfortresses in the same frame during this particular time window, so had to include it.
Finished!
After many months of painting, ‘The Peacemakers’ is finally ready to be taken down from the easel (which is actually my drafting desk, modified to accommodate this big canvas).
Now that the large painting had been completed, the process of making decisions about prints, editions, etc. had to be made. My original intention was to do an additional pencil drawing of ‘Bockscar’, to accompany the Enola Gay painting, but after so long on this project, I decided it warranted something a bit more special than a black & white sketch for a companion print. I felt a nice little oil painting depicting ‘Bockscar' would be an appropriate scene to accompany it. The usual crew of Bockscar (named after its usual assigned pilot Fred Bock) swapped planes with Charles Sweeney’s crew (‘The Great Artiste’) for the Nagasaki mission, and the two are shown flying in formation here.
“The Peacemakers” has been reproduced in a small edition of paper giclée prints, on a beautiful archival satin-finish stock manufactured by Ilford, with the trade name “Gold Fibre”. The rich color reproduction possible in this process makes possible a color gamut with a much deeper and richer range than is possible with standard 4-color litho printing. The Artist Proof edition also includes a conventionally printed companion piece, ‘Bockscar & Company”. We also are making available larger canvas reproductions, which I custom-embellish in oils. They’re beautiful!
