I recently noticed Santiago Michalek's paintings at the Bellevue Arts Festival, which evolved from a show of paintings by the better Seattle area artists back in the 1950s to what's now pretty much a crafts street market. As implied, a few painters do exhibit there, and Michalek struck me as the one with the most talent.

His Web site is here, the linked page containing some biographical information. Michalek lives in Utah, but was born in Argentina and claims to be self-taught. His passion is old Volkswagens -- usually Microbuses. But he paints locomotives and other transportation objects -- and even does people.

Below are images of his paintings that I grabbed mostly from his Web site.

Gallery

[Image]Early VW in garage

[Image]Murphy's Wholesale
A Derelict VW Microbus.

[Image]Silver Plane

[Image]15328 Engine

[Image]Switching Yard
I remember this from the show. It's fairly large, giving Michalek room to paint both tightly (the Baltimore & Ohio diesel locomotive) and freely (the background).

[Image]Color Study

[Image]Motion Figure