It’s hard to keep track of him.  Sometimes he’s riding the Rio Grande, traveling on the Virginia & Truckee or booking passage on the Central Pacific.  From electric to acrylic, trains have always been a curiosity and a ticket to success for artist Fred Bonn. 

A native Californian, Bonn became interested in locomotives during his childhood when he watched, in awe, the great Iron Horses race past his house in Reno, NV.  And over the years the city of chance must have had some influence on him – in midstream he decided to gamble on a new career.

He wasn’t about to let 10 years of experience in technical illustration, drafting, and commercial art go up in smoke, or was he?  In 1970, he left his aerospace job and began to devote full attention to painting.

The first few years were difficult, but it was inevitable that his bright, colorful pen-an-ink and acrylic paintings of early Western railroads would catch the public’s eye.  “A lot of train paintings depict an old engine on a deserted field,” said Bonn.  “My paintings show trains when they looked their best, new and fancy.  People forget these machines were the airlines of their day.”

He sketches the drawing in pencil as a rough guide and then alternates the drawing and painting.  He claims this style evolved accidentally.  The drawing was a crutch and it later developed into a technique.

“My work is half drawing and half painting.  From a distance you see the painting’s colors, however, when you walk up close to it you see the pen-and-ink line work.  Usually a line drawing has more interest than a painting.  I combine both elements.  People are attracted to the color and the detail.”

A few years ago Fred was commissioned by the California Western line to paint their 1924 Baldwin steam engine called the Super Skunk.  He rode the Skunk some 80 miles through the redwoods of Northern California.

His experiences on trains have enabled him to capture the flavor of the railroad.  Few Bonn paintings are without a windmill, a water tank, a trestle, mountains, evergreen trees, grassy knolls, or smoke curling out of the smokestack.

“Smoke is essential in my work.  Though the sketch is inked, it just sits there until I add smoke and steam.  It gives the vehicle movement.  It took me a while to get that down.  There aren’t any books on how to paint smoke.  I had to figure it out for myself.”

“Actually, I break a lot of rules.  All my work features the sun, which is in the background, with the highlights in the foreground.”

“Trains, however, are not his only love.  Bonn is also fond of rural scenes, Victorian houses, cars and World War II planes.  The planes are painted as “authentic” copies and displayed in dogfight situations.  The cars are very casual and somewhat exaggerated in shape.  In fact, this self-admitted car nut has a classic ’57 Chevy convertible.

Fred Bonn has come a long way as an artist since he changed careers.  And it seems the man is never going to run out of steam.