New Print - The Land Speed Record

You may have spotted the post about the Bloodhound Art Show, well this is the print i made for it. It features (hopefully) all the official land speed record holding cars. I wanted to highlight how the size and shape have changed over the years and so they are as close to the correct size in relation to each other as I could get them (I used a combination of photos, stats and video clips to try and establish the sizes).

Like the last VSCC print they are signed and numbered, on museum quality paper and printed with archival inks. This time it's A2 in size and it's an edition of 1000 (to match the 1000mph the Bloodhound team are aiming for). The cost is £40 +p&p and £10 of every one will got to help fund the Bloodhound Educational Project. Hope you like it...

ZenBrush App - quick test

ZenBrush - $2.99
Found another nice drawing app for the iPad. Again it's quite limited in terms of features but it makes up for that with a really nice, speed sensitive brush mark. It only has three opacities of black and an eraser, no zoom, no layers and only one undo. But that makes it very quick and intuitive to use. Plus points are - there's not much lag, a beautiful brush and a few different paper options. I can see myself using this for sketching quite a bit.

More Ideas

Still playing around with adobe ideas. I'm enjoying making custom palettes and then just sticking to those 5 colours. I think it gives it a sort of screen printed look (although the colours do look slightly different on the ipad - perhaps it's a mac gamma thing).

Bloodhound SSC Art Show

The Bloodhound team are having a little art show on the theme of 'Speed'. It opens this Friday and should run for a week I think. Some of the art will be auctioned off to raise money for their education programme. I've got a couple of prints on display - one of which I've done especially for it. The full size show car will be there too. So if anyone is in the Bristol area please pop in and have a look - or if you come on Friday, say hello. (Follow signs for the SS Great Britain and next door to it you'll see a square, red brick building which used to be the Maritime Heritage Museum - it's in there)...

UPDATE...
Just heard that they have a photographer coming to do a shoot so the show has been taken down early. That was quick wasn't it. I'll let you know if any other interesting events happen.

More ipad fun

Still experimenting with the ipad paint apps. Here's a quick sketch of Cathy watching tv - done with the adobe ideas app...


And looking out of the window, a couple of cloud studies done in Art Rage...


I have a couple of new apps to add to the reviews too. First...

Quill. $0.99
Similar to adobe ideas in that it's vector based. Has the addition of an italic nib and filled shapes too. Worth a look for the price.
Like: Cheap, italic nib has more character than plain round, shapes
Don'tlike: They seem to get flipped when emailing the images as pdf's - perhaps I' not doing it right, crashed on me yeterday and I lost some doodles.


TypeDrawing. $2.99
Not sure how often I'll use this but it's still a lot of fun. You type something in, choose a font and then draw with the text...

iPad paint software review

One of the reasons I haven't posted much lately is because I've been distracted by a new toy piece of serious technology which I need for work. I've always been a pc user and I'm not going to get into a pc/mac debate - there are things I like about both. Actually I don't really think of the iPad as a computer - I'm not entirely sure what it is. It's silent, keeps cool, doesn't need to boot up and the battery lasts all day. The interface is great and very intuitive - and then there's the apps...

I've had a lot of fun exploring all the strange games and widgets but for me the single most interesting thing was the ability to have photoshop-like software with me anywhere. I quickly downloaded a few of the most popular ones and although I've only been doodling so far I thought I'd share my experiences. First up...

Brushes. $7.99
Like:Not too laggy. Good selection of tweakable brushes without being too cluttered. Ability to play back sequence of strokes is brilliant. Layers.
Don't like: Can't make a dot (tapping screen brings up menu), Can't make quicktimes from playback on a PC (as far as I'm aware)


Sketchbook Pro. $7.99
Like: Least laggy of the ones i've tried so far. loads of features and brushes, layers, symmetry, clever shortcuts, speed sensitive stroke/opacity- even found some storyboard templates yesterday.


Livesketch. $1.99
This is like a cut down version of the Harmony procedural drawing program.
Like:It's reasonably fast, very pleasing and unexpected results.
Don't like: It's a pity it doesn't have a few more of the Harmony brushes.


Inspire Pro. £2.39
Haven't tried too much with this yet. It's supposed to simulate oils (not something I've done much of).
Like: reasonably fast, uncluttered, nice blending.
Don't like: Cant draw dots easily (you can do it by putting your finger down and twisting it), splash screen :)


Adobe Ideas. $Free.
Funny one this - I think it's vector based. You can zoom in to huge amounts and draw really detailed little drawings the size of ants. The brush strokes get smoothed too. To export the vector images you export to email - otherwise they get converted to jpegs.
Like: Fast, smoothing, large document size, palette creating tool
Don't like:Limited tools (a pen and an eraser). Have to pay for extra layers (but it is free so I can't really complain).


Artist's Touch. $4.99
Like: reasonably quick, nice splodgy paint daubs for gestural sketches.
Don't like: Colour palette interface (big long list), can't draw dots (brings up menu again)


Art Rage. $6.99
I'm a big fan of this on my PC - it's cheap, has excellent tools and a very intuitive interface.
Like:Tools, layers, everything really
Don't like: Unfortunately it's probably the most laggy - but I am starting to get used to working a little slower


That's it for now. It's not very in-depth and there may be some things which I'm wrong about because I haven't found everything out yet but it'll give you an overview of what's available. One other thing that's worth mentioning is that none of these have the ability to tweak contrast etc. so I found a useful free app called PhotoPad which will do that and more. So far I've really enjoyed drawing on the iPad - even though it's not pressure sensitive. I'll post some more pictures done with it soon.

Oh, and the boxwave stylus seems to work quite nicely too. A bit short but glides nicely over the screen.

Airports

Sorry the posts have been a bit thin on the ground recently. I haven't done a huge amount of drawing from life lately but I did manage to get a few quick sketches done on a recent trip to Denmark...

Hot Rod Doodles

There's a great hot rod forum called the HAMB. It has a very active art show every friday with some terrific work - everything from pinstriping to sculpture, photography, paintings - even lino cuts. That's the thing I like about Hot Rod culture - the art is such an important part of it. The cars themselves, being unique, are expressions of the builders artistic vision. Anyway, enough waffling - I did these for that...

My first print run!

I've had quite a lot of nice comments about those little car thumbnails. So much so that I thought I'd try a run of prints. I 've found a local printer and we spent Friday afternoon tweaking the image and trying out different papers and I now have now the first batch of A3 prints in my hands. I'm really pleased with how they came out. I've decided to limit them to 100 prints and they are signed and numbered. If anybody would like one I'm selling them for £35 including postage in Europe or the USA (if you're somewhere else please get in touch and I'll calculate the extra shipping cost).

Goodwood Revival

Found out on Thursday that I'd have Friday free so I got a last minute ticket for the Revival - only Friday tickets were available so I didn't manage to get a huge amount of drawing done. It was pretty chilly too and I didn't do too much watercolour this time as I hadn't packed my big waterbrush. Still, I had a fantastic time, jaw-droppingly beautiful cars abounded and I managed to get a few nice photos in as the sun set too. I'll be posting some images on flickr shortly.

First up is the 1959 Maserati Birdcage. It was fun trying to capture the curves of this beautiful car. I thought I'd done alright but Cathy said it looked like an A level piece. Perhaps it is a bit stiff - first one of the day, the cold etc etc...


I like a challenge so I had a go at the BRM H16. They had a beautiful selection of BRM's there...


This is a very quick sketch of a supercharged Austin Special - Mrs JoJo...


This is a rather stunning Bugatti Type 54 from 1931...


You'll notice that I've drawn a lot of these from the same angle - I didn't have a paddock pass so mostly I was restricted to drawing these from over or through the fence. Unfortunately this famous ERA had had its engine removed - you can see part of it on the ground next to it...


I quickly tried to get this last sketch in as the light disappeared. It's a beautiful car with a wonderful, well used look...

Bloodhound

Next door to where I work is a small building that used to be the Maritime Heritage Center. It's currently being used by Richard Noble's Bloodhound team - who are hoping to build a car that will exceed 1000mph. Here's a quick sketch of the full size mock up which is used to raise money and excitement for the project at various shows and events. It looks stunning and I can't believe my luck at having something like this going on so close to home...

Kilve

Kilve is on the Somerset coast. It's very interesting geologically - with a beach made of large sloping shelves of rock and some shaly cliffs behind. It's quite a good spot for fossil hunting too with lots of ammonites. It's only about an hour from where we live so we went for a picnic. Here the shale cliffs have eroded to leave the silhouette of a face...


... and it would be silly to go this close to Devon without stopping for a cream tea. These ruins are in the gardens of the Chantry Tea Gardens. The scones were excellent - should have only had one though...

Dragster

Went to a small local car show at Mark Moor. I was with the family but managed to get time to do a quick sketch of this Dragster - "The Canon Reloaded"...

Devon

Went camping in Devon for a few days. Didn't rain but there was a cold wind - which put us off sending much time on the beach. Still, we had a fun time exploring the area and had a nice view of Burgh Island from the tent. Here's a couple of quick sketches.

Burgh Island - with it's famous Art Deco Hotel...


Newton Ferrers and Totnes. Some of the architecture was very interesting - particularly in the back streets of Totnes - but there wasn't enough time to draw it all unfortunately...


and Dartington Hall - went a bit wrong with the windows...

VSCC Prescott

I went to this event last year and decided that day to try drawing the cars instead of just photographing them. I was really pleased with the sketches I came away with and it led to many more car drawings in the following months - I don't think I've stopped. When the same event came round again I decided I would camp so that I'd get the full two days to draw in.

I spent just over an hour on most of these (apart from the really quick ones). I'm enjoying experimenting with the watercolours. I ended up selling quite a few of these to the owners of the cars and got a couple of commissions too. Hope you like them.

I did this the evening I arrived. It belonged to someone from Holland and was a very impressive sight in the camping area. The back part of it was beautifully finished in wood...



Theophile Schneider. My first sketch of the day. It's quite tentative and light but I quite like that - I managed to stop myself doing too much and going in too heavily...


Stinson Special. This was originally an American Sprint racer...


Semmence Special. I did this one for the owners. I know very little about it - I thought it was a Lagonda Rapier at first - but it has some beautiful details...


Hudson Super Six. This car had fantastic proportions. The sketch was supposed to be a warm up piece for a more polished work but when I finished this I didn't think I could do a better one...


When I'd finished the other one I thought I'd have a quick go at sketching from a much closer position and it ended up becoming an action picture...


Wasp. I did this while being buzzed by actual wasps - the car was parked under a cherry tree. That's my excuse for it being a bit wonky anyway...


GN Gnat. Another of my favourite hillclimb cars. I have a sketch of this from last year too...


GN Spider II. Can't beat twin rear wheels - and the exposed chain driven gears too - what a fantastic car...


This was a stunning car. The body work was a modern recreation but it really looked the part. The satchel on the side was a nice detail. It's great to be able to see these great beasts in action...


This amazing car is a 200hp Darracq land speed record car from 1905. 25 litre V8 (possibly the first V8). It has two speeds. First is good for 90mph, second takes it to 120. The chap who owns it drove it to the circuit on the motorway! I didn't envy him having to start with a handle though...


A couple of quick front views of the 200HP Darracq and GP Mercedes...


Becke Powerplus. I love these specials. They're great to draw, full of interesting details and textures...


This well proportioned car had the most beautiful patina and all the details I like - rivets, oil, wood, brass, leather - perfect...


I did these Alfas in my tea break - not overly happy with them as they're a bit heavy - I probably drew them too small...


Very quick sketches mostly done while the cars were waiting to go up the hill. These vintage cars have such an interesting array of sizes and shapes...


I've not really looked at an Invicta very closely before but it's certainly worth it. Very crisp lines delicately edged with red pinstriping - it must have been quite a fancy car in it's day...


Panhard Levassor. 13.5 litre engine, a chair and some wheels - and something to hang on to. What more do you need?...


I'd like to have drawn this some more. It had some great angles and was very imposing...


The last drawing of the weekend. It 's a stunning car - the body is no higher than the wheels. Supercharged Jap engine provides the power...