Tag Archives: Cafe Racers

Buy amazing motorcycle art here.

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Todays big announcement is that the Soulcraftcandy on line art store is now open for business. As mentioned previously, following some very positive feedback and more than a healthy dose of encouragement, I have taken the leap to open an online micro-enterprise to enable fans of my work to purchase high quality prints of some of the drawings. You can jump straight to the site from here, or follow the link at the bottom of the ‘Shop’ page.

 

The decision to start small is a very deliberate one, which I hope will mean that it remains unique, interesting and manageable. As nice as it might sound to take the world of motorcycle art by storm and turn it upside down, this is not the purpose of the exercise at this point in time.

 

The intention is to offer small collections of prints that will change each quarter. So this initial set of five images, shown above, will be replaced by another set after three months and so on. If by chance certain pictures prove very popular then they may very well have a slightly longer run, or reappear in subsequent sets. My hope is that this will keep things fresh and interesting, and encourage viewers to return regularly to see what’s on offer. Ultimately it would be great to be able to offer a compendium of the sets in book form, but that remains a long term goal for now. As a matter of course all changes and updates will be signaled through the blog unless I’m gripped by a sudden urge to spring a complete surprise, which might be fun to do every now and then.

 

The choice of printing technology was discussed in the last post and so all of the prints available will be Giclée prints. Two sizes will be available for each image, A3 and A2 primarily, though some of the images will be in custom sizes and priced accordingly. As I mentioned before these prints are made on archival quality acid free cotton rag paper at 310 gsm weight.

 

One detail which caused much pause for thought was whether to offer limited edition numbered prints or something else. The latter approach won the day once I’d worked out how to instill a bit of extra value in each print beyond a hand written number in the corner. Consequently each print will be signed, dated and a small unique thumbnail doodle added at the same time. Essentially this will mean that each print will be unlike any other, no two being the same. My hope is that this will also help in the rotation of images as the need to wait for a certain order number to be satisfied will be removed. There will be a time for limited editions in the future, I’m sure of that but for now, this approach will hopefully keep things interesting.

 

Again, you can reach the store from this link, and thank you for taking the time to have a look.

 

Cafe Racer No.6, finally.

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Cafe Racer No.6

It’s raining, it must be June. Whilst the bad weather this weekend has done its best to put a massive dampener on anyone taking part in celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, in my case it has succeeded in driving me indoors, away from the distractions of motorcycling and into the chair in front of my drawing table. Unable to feel the tug of a sunny afternoon and a spin on the 250, a final spurt of creative energy means that the final drawing in the Cafe Racer series is now complete. Why this drawing has taken so long to finish could have something to do with the fact that all spare time over the last week has been taken up by constructing, fitting and painting a new front gate and posts, and giving the front door a once over. It may also have something (more) to do with nerves. When a drawing gets to a critical stage it can often be the case that I approach completing the final details with some trepidation, messing it up at a late stage is a huge risk. Biro is a fantastic medium, but you can never ever erase it. Once it’s down, that’s it. But it’s done now and other projects can start to take shape while I learn to breathe again!

The second part of todays double header is another lining paper sketch that didn’t make the final selection. It’s nearly there but not quite, very much a case of “ close, but no cigar”.  I was attempting to show some speed in the image without resorting to ending up with a huge blur. Various elements of the figure trailing off into the slipstream left behind. It’s something I have seen others do much more successfully than I’ve managed in this case, so there is some work to be done to get it working and may very well benefit from being tried again using a different medium. It is something worth aiming for as the alternative is the rather obvious big blurry background, and I’m not quite in the mood for one of those just yet. I’ll post my experiments as I go so you’ll soon see how things are progressing.

 

 

Cafe Racer No.6 – more progress.

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Cafe Racer 6

While the urge to “ship” or complete any drawing or image is a strong one, it’s very much proving to be a case of “slowly, slowly, catchy monkey” with this one. Jacket and hands done, head and legs to follow, and then something to ground it. Pushing aside the daily distractions of everyday life to focus on a specific creative task, particularly when that task is not born of your normal world of deadline fueled rushing about, is a skill which all of us amateurs must constantly struggle with. I am no different. It is good to know though, that these periods of slow progress are more than balanced by highly productive phases when stuff just pours out of your head and hand, and across the page. these slower moments are also a great opportunity for reflecting on sketch work and ideas, learning new things, recharging the creative batteries and dabbling in other creative pursuits.It would be good to finish it off by the end of the week though.

Here above is another of the sketches done on lining paper a while ago whilst churning out ideas for the Cafe Racer series.I like the idea behind it but my execution of the idea went a bit off track which led to me not including it in the first series. Rather like with the previous sketch shown in the last post I managed to make a bit of a fudge of the front wheel and that kind of ran all the way up the front forks too. Must try harder. You’ll also notice, and fair dues if you haven’t, that the rider figure has a strange look about him. Amongst other things his nose is a tad weird and his chin’s gone the same way too. It’s only a sketch so one can’t be too critical but, these things matter if one is to learn from examining ones own work and improve things for the future. What works though is the bike, apart from the front bit of course. It has that solidity to it that I’m always looking for, a great big engine surrounded by a chunk of hefty engineering. Again this will likely get redrawn sometime in the future, perhaps in another medium, and much bigger even. certainly a contender for the pending file.