This month's theme week is "Koholālele, Wyland's painting of N748AL". In 2007, marine artist Wyland was commissioned to paint one of Aloha AIrlines' 737-700s, which were used for the Hawai‘i - West Coast service. It would be the artist's only moving "whaling wall".
In April 2007, I was commissioned to photograph Wyland as he painted the Aloha Airlines 737-700. Asked if I would be interested was a no-brainer. I cleared my schedule for this historic event, which occurred a month later, and spent three days in the Aloha hangar shooting over 1,000 photos. Out of those photos, over 250 were submitted to the airline for their use, and to magazines. The first and second days were the actual drawing & painting, and the third day was the unveiling and blessing of the aircraft. Because there were so many photos, I decided to double up on the photos.
It was amazing to see how Wyland worked. He said the aircraft had one big challenge: the fuselage skin is curved. At the same time this was the only painting (up to that point) where he could get a full view by stepping back a few yards, since the maximum height he worked was about 20 feet (on a moving scaffold), something he could not do while painting a building.
In the top photo, Wyland draws a humpback whale on the left rear section of the fuselage with a blue grease pencil. This was the first of the sea life he painted.
In the above photo, Wyland adds detail to the whale painting by using different shades of blue.
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