Making War Locomotives 1917

Joseph Pennell's "Making War Locomotives" is a work of lines, scratches, and shades of gray that captures the feeling of industrialisation. You can almost hear the clang and bang and feel the heat of the factory. I wonder if Pennell ever felt like he was constructing something monumental each time he put pencil to paper? The way he has structured the image feels like I'm in the factory with him, watching the locomotives being made. I can feel the graphite on the paper, the way the pencil moves to create depth and shadow; the hatching building up to suggest the weight of the machines and the activity of the men. It's a bit like life, isn't it? Building something piece by piece, layer by layer, until something new is made. I know as a painter how one mark can lead to another, and another, shifting and emerging through trial and error. Perhaps Pennell felt the same.