Category Archives: Layout

That’s more like it.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Pencil layout by Jon Tremlett 2014 for Soulcraftcandy

As I mentioned in the previous post, the composition of the first picture for Mr. C needed further work resulting in a bit of a redraw. It’s funny how it works sometimes. In your mind you’ve got this image that you think is what you want. Then you draw it out and it’s a million miles away from what you are actually after. So after staring at it for a good while you redraw, thinking that this is going to be a bit of a marathon, and “pop” out comes what you were looking for in the first place. This is not the first time this has happened, so I don’t waste any energy thinking every first rendition will be the right one.

So what you see above is the tightened version made from the blue pen sketch. I use my small home built light box for doing this. It’s essentially a tracing exercise where all of the details are positioned where I want them and I sort out the final angle projections for the wheels and stuff. The hardest bit is getting the position of the figure right, and this will often involve several bits of paper as I try and find the right one. For example, the lower leg and foot in this picture was particularly problematic, for some reason I just couldn’t “see” it. I have a Japanese made posable figure here which I use in situations like this, he’s a very useful piece of kit.

Police car by Jon Tremlett 2014

I also had to do a fair amount of work on the chasing police car down in the lower right hand corner. The one in the main picture here is a kind of modern version based on something they might use right now but, it doesn’t sit well with the overall feel I’m looking for. Something more retro was called for as I want to create a notional connection with the original age of the bad boy Cafe Racer. Searching the web, as you do, turned up some fabulous old pics of what we would call here in the UK, Jam Sandwiches and Panda cars. Just like all modern societies we seem to relish the opportunity to give anything to do with law enforcement a nickname. So the force, “Plod” would drive “jam sandwiches”, essentially white cars with a dirty great red stripe down the side. These superseded the “Panda” cars which were oddly light blue with white doors and very slow. I digress. The other picture here today is my final choice for the police car. An early “Jam Sandwich” of the Triumph 2000 variety, suitably festooned with period accessories including the big illuminated box on the roof (a massive air brake), crappy roof mounted spots and a great big siren mounted in the middle of the bonnet to aid engine cooling. It takes me back to my youth tearing about the neighbourhood on my old Yamaha avoiding these characters.

From here there follows another light box session to transfer this onto Bristol Board ready for the final step which is the biro inking stage, which oddly I’m looking forward to a great deal as I haven’t done one of these for some time. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, and thanks for dropping by today.

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Today I painted a car! Part 1.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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A painting in progress by Jon Tremlett ©2014

It would be fantastic to say that after only a day of painting that the picture was complete, but I know I don’t work that fast and besides, any faster would be a rush and that’s when mistakes happen. Anyway, as you can see from the shot above it has come a long way from the blue sketch shown in the last post. I suppose at this point the car is about half done.

Barring a couple of small detail changes it was very straightforward to trace off on to the watercolour paper using the lightbox. I use a good old HB pencil for tracing off, and I’ve found that once you’ve captured the image you can then stretch the paper as you would normally and not loose any of the pencil work. This is a really handy discovery and means I can avoid endless hours mucking about with grids and such transferring the drawing on to paper stuck to a big wooden board.

All of us who have been lucky enough to have been on the receiving end of any artistic tuition will have been told at some point or other that there is no such thing as black when making a drawing or a painting. So the first challenge when rendering a black car is working out what colour it is. An old tutor I had at design school always recommended starting with Payne’s Grey and working from there. He’s been proved right so many times. So the picture is built up using various dilutions of Winsor and Newton Payne’s Grey, wash upon wash. This means you can work slowly toward the shade you’re after without putting down a whole load, and subsequently realising it should have been lighter. It’s time consuming, but a lovely technique. To get the slight blueness in the highlights I put a very thin wash of Indigo Blue down first. The bits that look black, but are in fact an intense dark blue, were put down quite thick as those areas had very defined lines to follow. For the area of shadow under the car I’m going to use a half and half mix of W&N Payne’s Grey and Schmincke Payne’s Grey which will give me a slightly warmer shade. I’ll mention here that although I have three tubes of paint here all called Payne’s Grey, from different manufacturers, they are all quite different. It helps to buy a few and find the one that suits your technique the best.

The background contains the concrete telegraph pole shown, and a whole swathe of a large green leafed hedge that sits behind the car in my reference shot. There’s a big tree in there as well so they will go in towards the end of the painting process so that I can build them up gradually and frame the car just enough without swamping it. It’ll be done soon.

It feels good getting back in the saddle.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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SC_Sketch_1©JonTremlett2014

Wow, it’s been two months since the last post!  I don’t for a moment think that that is a good thing but, the time has now passed so there’s little point worrying about it. Summer is always a busy time and this year is no exception, though I would have preferred it if one of the things that’s been happening in the meantime wasn’t the premature termination of my working contract. Hey ho. At least I wasn’t fired, I just became the resultant collateral damage of a major falling out between other parties who couldn’t resolve their differences. Such is the unpredictability of freelance working I suppose, and something that we all have to get used to by necessity rather than choice. As you can imagine, finding the next thing to do is a challenge which drags me away from keeping my blog up to date.

But enough about that. Today the creative itch has finally got the better of me and sketches have been scanned, paper has been stretched and the need to draw is whispering in my ear. So, what am I going to work on next?

SC_Sketch_2©JonTremlett2014

Some time ago, far too long to be considered as recently, I was contacted by a guy in California, a certain Mr Steve Carpenter, who has made a very successful business out of building cafe racers for select customers. He wanted to know if we could do something together. I said yes, of course, the guy’s a very respected builder and a very creative chap. I feel rather honoured to be asked, frankly. So my next project is to create some specific artworks for Steve in my black biro style, based around some ideas we’ve talked about.

So here are a couple of initial sketches, done in blue pen on newsheet, which are my first attempts at capturing what Steve and I have chatted about. I think you can get the gist of what we’re thinking from the images. These two are first thoughts and are not yet exactly what I’m after. There are a stack of post-it notes here covered in notes about what I want to change about them, I find this the best way to document my thoughts and satisfy my inner editor, so the final image will be different. But these are a solid start in trying to capture the feeling I’m after and get a feel for the overall “shape” of the picture I want to create. Mr. C knows I do this as a hobby, so he’s not applying any pressure, I’m very capable at doing that myself (!), but looking at these sketches today and reading through the notes makes me want to get on with it and rev up the creative engine again.

It’s good to be back.