Tag Archives: Sketching

Sidecars part deux.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Completing the drawing featured in the last post it was clear that there could be something in this sidecar thing. It’s great to “bank” a decent drawing early on as it provides a good spur to stick with a subject for a while and see where it takes you. It can be so easy to look at a picture and allow your brain to say “right, that’s that done, now for something else”. Your ability to say no to your inner self is a small bit of discipline that can take a heck of a lot of learning. So I thought I’d play with the subject for a while.

 

Initially I wasn’t too sure exactly why sidecar outfits are suddenly holding my attention but having thought about it for a bit there are some very good reasons why this is the case. Catching the televised coverage of this years Isle of Man TT races I realised how much I enjoyed watching the sidecar races and how utterly bonkers the whole thing is. It’s a kind of controlled madness and as such is very exciting. The machines today are a good deal faster and the whole dynamic is much more violent than in yesteryear, but it still amazes me how they do it. Modern outfits are more streamlined bullet than bike and sidecar combinations of the past, and it is these old solutions to solving the same problem that offer a great opportunity for some fun images. There’s more exposed machinery to try and capture, an engine you might get a glimpse of, some extreme gymnastics on the part of the passengers and everything about the machine is straining to follow that fine line between going fast and tipping over completely. It’s a target rich environment as it were, and one that I hope to spend some time having a look into.

The post images today are small sketches done following the bigger drawing. The top image is a quickie to see how the idea might look with some colour applied. The half finished view is how it looked before I caved in and added the sky and track edge detail. The final image is another very quick sketch where I’m thinking about including more than one outfit in the shot. A big colour drawing is definitely on the cards as a result and there are others that I’m working on now which are helping me explore some new techniques and media. They will be up here soon I hope.

 

 

Cafe Racer No.6 – more progress.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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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.

 

 

Cafe Racer No.6 progress.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Cafe Racer No.6

It seems that one only has to blink and time appears to have rushed past.Things have been a bit quiet on the Soulcraftcandy front these last couple of weeks as a hefty chunk of freelance work has done it’s best to sap the creative batteries. It has always been a challenge to keep focus on the art, and the blog, during periods of intense work. It remains to be mastered.

Cafe Racer No.6 b

But as you can see, things don’t stop completely, and progress is being made on the final drawing in this initial series of Cafe Racers. With a couple of free days ahead it should be complete soon. Psychologically speaking it will be an important moment to reach the end of this set. It will signal the completion of my first self-initiated “project”, and a time to reflect on progress and cast my mind towards what to do next.

A hint of where things go from here might be contained in this other sketch which I’m sharing with you on todays post. This is another relatively quick drawing done directly onto heavy weight lining paper. You will note that I made a right old mess of the front wheel. The freehand ellipse remains a tricky fish to land, but at the time it didn’t concern me enough to want to stop the drawing mid way and start again. The pleasure derived from doing these quick drawings, and exploring the view and texture, is more than sufficient to motivate the desire to complete them. There is nothing wrong with a flawed drawing, they are interpretive in nature anyway, and mistakes are always things that we learn from, be they major or minor.

 

It was not included in the main series as I’d already selected the group of six but, it does join a group of other drawings which I hope will inspire some experimentation with techniques and media that will follow on from here.