Category Archives: Ink

It’s been a long time coming.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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"Catch me if you can", a biro drawing by Jon Tremlett for Soulcraftcandy.

Finally, finally, finally, today it’s time to reveal the latest finished drawing. For now it’s called “Catch me if you can”, and I think it will probably stay that way. This one has taken rather a long time to complete, though I’m hoping you’ll see why and understand my excitement at seeing it done. As I’ve mentioned before it is inspired by an idea thrown at me by Steve Carpenter over in California, a nod to the underlying disregard for authority and convention that underpins our shared love of motorcycles and what we do with them. Having said that I would add that this is by no means meant to celebrate bad behaviour or law breaking (much).

As with some of my previous drawings this one is drawn using a yellow barrelled fine tipped Bic biro (c’mon guys where’s that sponsorship ;D) on 250gsm Bristol Board at A3 size. For some reason, and I think it might have something to do with not having done a biro drawing for a while, I approached this with a level of conscientiousness that I found quite surprising. Hence the time it’s taken to finish. I even got to the point of wrapping tape around the barrel of the pen to remind me where I needed to hold it to get a particular line weight and thickness. They say that God lives in the details, and perhaps that’s where He is in this one, not in the picture but in the bit of blue tape wrapped around my pen?

For much of its gestation the picture was just the bike and the pursuing police car but, following what I did on the V-Bob picture recently, see the post here, I decided to put in some street scene to provide some context and stuff. I think it works quite well. Aside from the cartoon nature of the depiction, like the hand gesture and the light flying off the car roof, the street scene offers the perfect opportunity to inject a little bit of extra humour into the composition. It’s something I’ll be working on more in future, it appeals to my sense of the ridiculous. I’ve been wandering around my neighbourhood here in Ealing taking lots of pictures of local shops, pubs and buildings so that I can build a little reference archive to use for future inspiration.

As usual I’ve put this up as a low resolution image, so apologies if you’re struggling to see the detail. Please feel free to share it but, I would ask that you don’t use it for any other purpose for the time being. Much obliged and thanks for dropping by today, I hope you enjoyed it.

Here are some details from the drawing for you.

Details of "Catch me if you can" by Jon Tremlett ©2014.

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Shotgun drag bike – the finished picture.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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107_Shotgun©JonTremlett2014

Now that the finished picture is finally with its new owner, it’s the right time to post it here on the blog. It would have been unfair on Nik to put the finished picture up before he’d had a chance to see it in the flesh. Needless to say he had a very big smile on his face when he unwrapped the parcel, a moment that gave me great satisfaction and a fitting end to a project that has been utterly enjoyable to do, and has left me feeling that this could very well be the best picture I’ve done to date. So brilliant to get something just right. I think he’s going to hang it in his living room which makes me very proud and is rather flattering to be honest.

The front fairing was, in time honoured tradition, pretty much the trickiest part to complete in colour. As I hinted in the previous post, these intense liquid colours come with their own set of particular limitations, namely their ability to “blend” across larger areas and around complex details. Getting the red to “flow” around all of the lettering involved lots of quick brush work, letting things dry and using very diluted tints laid over each other. It took quite some time, but the result looks great in the context of the overall picture. We’d agreed that the bike would sit alone on the background and so the finishing touch was just to put the thick black line under the wheels and sign it. Job done.

108_Shotgun_B&W©JonTremlett2014

Nik had also asked me to do him a smaller black and white drawing that he could use for t-shirts and cards. I chose a simple elevational view for this one, and the dot shading technique I’ve used on a couple of previous pictures seemed the best way to go. As I’ve said before, this is a rather time consuming way to apply shade to a drawing but it does give the finished thing a look which is very distinct and crisp.

With these two done it’s time to delve into the unfinished projects drawer and pull out a couple of sketches that have been on the back burner for some time now. There’s also the possibility that I’ll do another picture of the Shotgun, perhaps a partial drawing from another angle. I’m undecided at present but will post up how I get on with both of these options soon.

Shotgun drag bike – slowly the bike emerges from the paper.

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Shotgun_greys©JonTremlett2014

In a continuation from the previous post, here are some further images charting the progress of the Shotgun drag bike picture. In this first one I’m still very much in the process of laying down the grey tones, and as you can see this pretty much covers most of the parts of this bike, including the tyres, which are not painted red. As I mentioned previously this is very much a process of laying on tone and building up to the desired intensity in small steps. Most people who’ve ever rendered anything will tell you that true black doesn’t really exist, and they’d be right. But with this style of drawing or painting I like to create areas of absolute black as they help give the image punch and underline the more cartoonish nature of the final picture. So where possible it’s good to get those bits done at this stage too.

Shotgun_frame1©JonTremlett2014

In this second image you’ll see that I’ve completed the exhaust pipes having finished with the greys, before starting on the frame colour. Exhaust pipes, especially chromed ones are a lot of fun to do, but they do rely on you having some decent reference material to work from. In this case there was plenty going on in the photograph, so the reflections are quite colourful and intricate. The engine, and therefore the near vertical exhaust pipe too, provide a real central anchor point for the picture and the reflections really help to draw the eye to the focal point of the image.

Shotgun_frame2©JonTremlett2014

This final image shows the picture with the frame pretty much done. Again, this was a process of laying down slightly diluted tones of the red colour in steps, slowly building the colour up giving the frame tubes their form and highlight areas as you go. I took some time to get the base red right, mixing scarlet and orange inks to obtain something with the right amount of vibrancy. Diluted this gave a lovely pink for the lighter areas and with a bit of dark rich brown mixed in created a great tone for the shadows. It can be a bit nerve wracking when working with such strong colour as the last thing you need is to smear it across an area where it’s not wanted, or worse, get a small droplet landing on your pristine white surround. Once this stuff is down, there is no way to get rid of it or cover it up. But taking your time and working slowly and methodically pays dividends, and allowing things to dry every few minutes is a good habit to get into.

By this stage the picture is really starting to jump off the page, the red frame bringing a whole new three dimensional feeling to the piece. Nearly there.