planet of the cars

September 6, 2012September 6, 20122 Comments

Here are some of my son’s favourite toys, the Cars. I am forever tripping up on them, camouflaged against the roadmap rug in the living room, or lined up in very specific race positions on the many racetracks we draw together. The two movies, along with the Mater’s Tall Tales specials, are never far from the dvd schedule, and we all find ourself humming one of the tunes from the movies or saying ‘ker-chow’ or ‘dad-gum’ or such as like. My son has loads of these die-cast metal toys from both movies, some of them quite hard to find individually, to the point where it becomes a parent’s favourite quest to find the more obscure ones (I don’t know who Rip Clutchgoneski is in the movie but he for one is very difficult to obtain). And unlike so many toys, these get really played with, and my already multi-lingual son likes to get the Spanish one to count in Spanish, the French one in French, Francesco Bernoulli says ‘uno! due!’ tre!’ and so on. The German one is called ‘Vettel’ (actually it’s Max Schnell, but Sebastian Vettel is his favourite race-car driver, and I think he does the character’s voice in the German version of the movie, just as Lewis Hamilton guests in the original). See? I’m an expert.

Cars is a funny universe though. I read it as a Planet of the Apes type world, and would love to see Cars 3 run along those lines, whereby a human from the past arrives, does the ‘get your wheels off me you damn dirty Audi’ or something, and ends up with Mater pulling the Statue of Liberty out of Carburettor Canyon. Surely no crazier than the story of Cars 2?

I drew this in copic multiliner pen with watercolour, in the Stillman & Birn ‘Alpha’ sketchbook. I am using that sketchbook to draw a series of my son’s things. It’s great paper too.

i’ve been around for a long, long year

July 12, 20124 Comments

While up in Medford my wife spotted this long blue/black Chrysler parked out near an old laundry, so I had to try and draw it. It was so long and mean looking it reminded me of the Batmobile. I stood in the hot sun to draw this, trying to get shade from a lamp-post (they don’t give much shade, by the way). This is a car that says, you’re gonna listen to what I gotta say, then I’m gonna run ya outta town. This isn’t a car for the streets of Colindale. This car is master of his domain.

monochrome mini

July 6, 2012July 6, 2012Leave a comment

Continuing with cars, after a period of non-sketching after London I finally got out and drew something, this little mini parked near Mansion Square on E Street. This was a quickie alright. Across the street is Uncle Vito’s, a pizza place and bar (I always want to called it De Vito’s, because De Vere’s is just up the road). Of course, this is a ‘new’ Mini, not a proper one like the really small Minis. That would look funny in America. I always feel these ones are really just regular sized cars trying to bend down.

a bug’s life

July 6, 2012July 6, 20122 Comments

A Volkswagen Beetle, yellow of course, my entry for the Pence Gallery’s Bug Show – yes, it’s not an insect type bug but it is still a bug. When I dropped it off, Eileen at the Pence (a big VW Beetle fan) told me someone else had also submitted a Beetle; I’m not surprised! It is a classic among automobiles, the old Beetle. I have always loved them, and love seeing them (those newer ones are nice too, they look a bit like stormtroopers, but I prefer the older ones). Jurgen Klinsmann drives one I recall (I heard he got into a minor collision, fell theatrically out of the door and the other driver got a red card, or maybe I dreamed it). We all remember Herbie the Love Bug (well, actually it’s unlikely anybody has heard of Herbie any more, let alone remember it, in fact I don’t really remember it). My personal favourite was Bumblebee the Transformer, the original one, which was a classic yellow Beetle. When they made the new ones and turned him into a Chevy Camaro, I thought that was like remaking Star Wars and turning Chewbacca into Cousin It.

I didn’t draw this from life, it’s from photos, drawn on Canson textured white paper in micron pigma 005 ink, with watercolour. It’s for sale at the Pence Gallery in Davis for $66, during the Bug Show.

you make me dizzy miss lizzy

March 4, 20123 Comments

I really needed a haircut. You know how it is, your hair is fine, just the right length, then one day all of a sudden it’s way too long, and you’re like Yahoo Serious or someone. I’m someone who needs his hair short. So I finally made it to the barber’s downtown, and there were about five people ahead of me, so I took that opportunity to go and sketch something. There was an interesting old car parked out on 3rd Street, so obviously that’s where I went. I stood in the shade outside the former Blockbuster Video and drew in my Stillman & Birn gamma series book. I was about halfway through, when the driver came and drove it away.I finished it off at home. I didn’t even get to see what make of car it is; can you guess for me?

free as a firebird

February 28, 2012February 28, 2012Leave a comment

This blue Pontiac Firebird, with furry dice in the window, was parked on 2nd Street last week when I was on my way downtown. I had to stand and sketch it. There’s a real primary colours feel to the classic cars I’m finding to sketch lately (ie, they’re usually red, yellow or blue). Speaking of primaries, big ones today in America. Michigan and Arizona. Mitt vs Rick, with Newt and Ron sitting it out. They should just merge them all into one candidate, “Mittrick Newtron” and have done with it. I must say, I’m dreading this marathon-of-marathons election season reaching California, all those horrible endless pointless soul-destroying attack ads, paid for by super-pacs and other nefarious organizations, which unfortunately really do have an effect on the outcome of elections, regardless of a candidate’s actual worth. And these torrential ads are called free speech… free to the highest bidder. I’m almost glad I can’t vote for any of them.

she’s a nice girl

February 20, 2012Leave a comment

Bloody lovely weather yesterday in Davis, so I went and sketched for a bit in the afternoon. I spotted this beauty parked on 3rd Street, so I parked myself on the sidewalk and whipped out the moleskine sketchbook. There were quite a lot of very sketchable cars out yesterday, for some reason, but I didn’t have time for them all. One thing that drew me to this car was its shadow – basically, it is Batman. Who knew?! There’s this advert on the telly these days for Fiats where this guy is confronted by a tall young Italian woman who slaps him in the face and then acts all seductively, before the guy realises she is just a car. My four-year-old saw that commercial, and he said dryly, “she’s a nice girl”, which had me in hysterics. He does like cool cars though, so this one’s for you matey.

all creatures great and small

February 9, 2012February 9, 20124 Comments

Don’t be distracted by the scale of the sketches, these vehicles are polar opposites in size. But I don’t really need to tell you that. More from my sketching day around North Beach in San Francisco. I saw the small Smart Car perched on Union Street and given my recent batch of yellow vehicle drawings, I had to sketch it. It’s a little bit like an updated Guido from Cars (incidentally, have you noticed how the sterotyped Italian is still a mainstay of kids cartoons? Guido and Luigi in Cars, Cow Bella from Pajanimals, Bella Lasagne from the old series of Fireman Sam, Mr Carburettor from Rory the Racing Car, Mr Sabatini from Bob the Builder, that Crow from Dangermouse…). The one below was parked on Columbus, almost as a tourist attraction, so many people were stopping to photograph it. It was indeed a thing of beauty, long, sleek, open topped, classic. I had to stop and draw it – I checked the parking meter first though, to see how long I might have. Twenty minutes, good good, but I kept it small. Eventually the owners did come by, two fellows dressed in SF Giants gear (it was FanFest at the ballpark that day), and they were happy to let me keep drawing, in fact they were even letting passers by get into the car to take photos! I showed them some of my other drawings, and they told me I should go to Belmont, where apparently they paint the fire hydrants up like people. That’s a place I have to go to!

old yellow MG

January 17, 2012January 17, 20128 Comments

I had a day off on Martin Luther King Day and so I spent the day out sketching stuff. It was bright and sunny, but freezing cold. The first thing I drew was a beauty, a yellow MG parked over near the railroads. How could I resist? I have been meaning to draw more cars when I see them out and about, so I’m glad to have chanced upon this. Micron 01 and watercolour in my moleskine, and it took about half an hour to draw, before moving on to freeze my fingers off somewhere else…

riding along in my automobile

October 5, 2011October 4, 20114 Comments

More classic cars from the Antique Automobile Club of America, who were showing off their golden oldie vehicles at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair in Santa Rosa last weekend. I had some nice chat with some of the car owners, who were all very excited about these cars, as was I. I’ve said it before, you think of America, you think of cars like this, big and swanky, not the beige Toyotas that everyone here drives (including us). These aren’t simply ‘cars’, they are Automobiles. It’s worth saying all those extra syllables. I even recognize the sparkling whitewall tyres (thank you ‘Cars’, or rather thank you my three-year-old-son). The blue automobile above is a 1955 Ford Fairline Sunliner, ah 1955, I remember it well from Back to the Future. (Actually I saw an actual DeLorean a couple of months ago, on the Freeway, I’ve never seen a real one before! It was heavy) While sketching, someone did ask me why I chose to draw this one, and not, for example, the more interesting looking car next to it (a green Kaiser Dragon). This one, he said, was one of the less interesting of the cars on display. I told him, well it’s pretty interesting to me, but mostly it’s because I could see ll of it; the Dragon was partly hidden by a display board (and by this car). I tell you what I found interesting, there is only one wing mirror, on the driver’s side.

This however was the car that everyone seemed to rave about, and it’s easy to see why. The big, powerful red 1936 Cord is like something out of a retro sci-fi fantasy, less of a car than a comic book come alive. Those metal pipes coming from the side make me suspect that this is in fact a Time Machine, what Doc Brown would have made if he had a better budget. How could I resist? I must admit, I’d never heard of Cord automobiles before. This looks like a Cord 812, though I may be wrong. As someone who usually can’t tell one car from the other (having been stuck in car parks full of beige Toyotas looking for a beige Toyota), I love the variety in design of the old cars. They don’t make ’em like they used to (but we probably get better mileage nowadays).