PHANTOMS IN CLOSE SUPPORT

Phantoms in Close Support, unique 13.5 x 9 inch silkscreen print from an ink drawing hand colored with watercolor and gouache by George C. Clark    U.S. Air Force Art Collection

Comment:

I did the black-and-white ink drawing for this piece to use as poster and announcement art for the first two showings of A Year in the Tropics because color printing was too expensive in 1987.  Then I made a silkscreen print of it on archival watercolor board and hand colored it with watercolor and gouache.  The color version is now in the U.S. Air Force Art Collection.  

I have exercised a bit of artistic license in this painting.  I did see our aircraft rocketing targets, but not from as close up as it looks here.  And there were Khmer ruins about (I was only a 175mm projectile's throw from Cambodia, after all), but I never saw any of them personally.  I have since done archaeology in southern Illinois and Yorkshire, but I didn't have a chance to check out any ruins in Vietnam.  I spent over 95% of the thirteen months I was there literally underground in bunkers.