Igor Sadovy shares the steps he took to create this three panel motorcycle artwork.

Find out more about Igor on his profile page.

Step 1:
I have taken 3 canvases (in Italian juta) measuring 50 x 70 cm. cdn, fixed them behind with two parallel strips. I then put an acrylic chalk (gesso acrilico per artisti) very dense in chaotical mode, mixing it with the bright red color. Considering the high thickness of chalk it needs to dry for approximately one week.

Step 2:
I marked the measures of the future design, leaving the center and I paint around. I put only the basic colors that will always be slightly modified step by step.

Step 3:
Rebuild the general design of the pilot and the bike.

Step 4:
And from step 4 to step 5 I’m working details of the design-pilot and the bike.

Step 5:
Working in more details of the design-pilot and the bike.

Step 6:
I do tests on the second level; adding the green stripes to emphasize the speed.

7-step:
I divide the general canvas, clean the borders from plaster, and I fixed the three paintings on the black base with 2-cm. distances between them the work needs to be framed!

I hope you like it!

Dan Reed explains his techniques in creating a 1969 Pontiac GTO illustration using colored pencil on matt board.
Dan studied art at West Chester University. The majority of his work is based around his love of classic cars however, he enjoys keeping active in architectural renderings, train illustrations, and pet portraits.

See more of Dan Reed’s artwork at his web site – http://www.danreedillustration.com

This is the beginning stages of a 1969 Pontiac GTO illustration. Colored pencil on matt board. The shadow was created using 70% and 90% Cool Gray pencils. The tires were done in various values of Warm Gray.

The base layer of pencil is Orange. The second layer on the bottom half of the fenders is Poppy Red. Bright Yellow and 90% Cool Gray is used in the pinstripe graphics

White pencil is used to go over the Orange to create the highlights along the top portion of the body panels. 70% Warm Gray is used for the lower body crease. Various values of Warm Gray is used in the interior.

Take note of the rear view mirror and door handle compared to the previous photo. Add the illusion of chrome and add a cast shadow and it really comes to life.

Again, a very flat looking front fender so far (just a base layer of Orange pencil).

Now the fender has some shape to it.

Here I slowly render in the contours of the hood using a combination of Orange, Poppy Red & White pencil.

The grill details are complete (70% & 90% Cool Gray)

The completed artwork.

D.F. Gray shares his techniques using pastels to create artwork of his Dad’s 1964 Dodge Dart.
Born in Vancouver B.C., he has worked in soft pastel since 1975. He is also the coordinator PSC2000 the first Pastel Society of Canada Exhibit in western Canada Genial host of The Grand Prix ‘d Art Qualicum Beach B.C.

A TV interview was also arranged to demonstrate his techniques on this piece for the Art Calendar on Shaw Cable, Kait Light host and Rob Horner camera.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dfgray

My green backyard on a showery May afternoon.

The interview is to advertise the Nanaimo Cruise Ship paint-out May 14th, and the closest thing to a cruise ship in my yard is my Dads 1964 Dodge Dart under a tarp out by the woodshed (I drove this car to my high school prom! 40 years ago)

First step I mark an x on the tape or corner of my paper indicating the direction of my light source. I warm up by drawing just with my hand(no pastel) to feel the flow of the composition and seeing the horizon line without marking paper(also there is muscle memory that is set) find my lights and then darks using a light touch and broad strokes this tonal study sets the composition.

Working on my darks setting values without local colour.

Starting to work with the local colours at this stage. While at work the rain returns, I have my pastels covered with coroplast.

With Art Calendar host Kait Light and cameraman Rob Horner.

The interview, I try to remain spontaneous talking while working so to give them action shots, the interview turns out OK, I look like an artist and the pastels that are shot look good on the TV. I think the bonus was seeing Dads wheels on TV!

In the studio, some detail work on Dart also contrast is heightened in foreground, lessened in background. The pastel gets small tweeks over the following day, it gets cropped to a standard size then signed.

Lemorris Harris takes us from pencil sketch to finished artwork using Illustrator and Photoshop with his “How-To” called “Rendering the Rocket”.
See more of Lemorris’s artwork at his web site:
http://www.lemorris.com

Back Story – At my place of work there is this sweet Olds that a co-worker drives. I have admired the car for years and through a series of events the wife of the owner found out I draw cars on the side. We talked and she gave me an opportunity to draw the Olds. So..first of all thanks to her for giving me a shot. I hope you guys like it.

Here’s how it happened.

Pencil – My first step was to shoot photos of the car and then draw it. Then I put my rough sketch on my light table and transferred it to another piece of paper. I repeated this process about 7 times until I got the lines looking like I wanted.
Modifications including increasing the wheel size for effect and also mapping out where all the highlights and reflections would be once I got it into Illustrator on my PC.
My initial plan was to keep the windows rolled up and just fade to a deep blue but the customer pointed out some specific things that were really key to creating a more accurate likeness so I added an interior on my computer.

Illustrator Trace – The pencil drawing was about 15 inches long so I had to scan it in 2 chunks and then line up the halves. You can see I didn’t do as well as I would have liked but it was close enough to get me going.

Illustrator Line – Next I began to trace over my pencil drawing using the pen tool in Illustrator. In general I work with 4 layers. The base layer is where the pencil drawing is locked. Then I creat a layer and using a bright blue pen at 1.5 pt I draw the contour of the vehicle. Then I create another layer and using blue with a .5 or 1 pt line I draw all the parts and stuff…you know, rims, windows, body lines etc. then I create another layer and use red at .5 pt to trace my highlight and shadow lines.
It’s important to keep them on separate layers because when I move them over to Photoshop I have the option of selecting small confined areas or larger broader shapes. In Photoshop the space between lines becomes fillable areas.

Photoshop Render – In Photoshop I take my exported Illustrator file and turn the layers into Channels. Each Channel represents a color in the drawing. I do it this way because I do a lot of work for screenprinting and working in Channels allows me to create my film separations as I render the car…huge time saver and great results.
By using the magic wand tool I click in an area which gets confined by the lines around it then I use the gradient tool or the airbrush tool to paint in the color. Since the specific channel determines the color I can use soft airbrush settings and the gradient tool to create blends. For The Rocket I actually filled the entire body with a blue base color then carefully added the darker blue tones on a separate channel.

Here you see the final rendered piece. I made a quick logo in Illustrator and dropped it on and added some nice soft white edges to give it alittle more pop. This was a fun car to draw and I learned a lot.

Thanks to the client for lettin me at it…it was great!
-Lemorris

Steven Cavalieri gives us a brief example of how he creates original automotive illustrations using a computer and illustration application.
Steven studied at Art Center College of Design back in the 1970s before computers were accessible for this type work. He has since embraced the new media and has worked as creative director at such companies as Macromedia, Infoseek/Go.com, and OmniSky. He currently works as a creative and design consultant as well as illustrating cars for several major automotive magazines.

See more of Steven’s artwork at his web site: http://homepage.mac.com/creative_guy

Like traditional automotive illustration, wheels say a lot about the personality of the car. If I am drawing an existing car I research the details as much as possible.

Tires can also be very important—and in some cases model specific. As in traditional painting and drawing, layering helps give depth and assists in transitioning from light to shadow.

Contemporary cars can have large wheels with vast open spaces between spokes. This makes it necessary to spend time illustrating the brake components. Again, researching the materials, colors and other details becomes more important.

Now I assemble the completed wheel, tire and brake elements. Depending on the car, I typically copy and modify the first wheel to create the second—taking care to size and position rotors and wheels appropriately for front and rear applications.

Once the wheels are ready I space them out on a baseline, usually 3x the diameter of the tire, again depending on the type of car. Notice that even though this illustration is a profile view, using perspective helps communicate depth and the illusion of distance.

Now that I have a base to build up on, I start with an outline of the body shapes. I can push, pull and redraw lines until I am pleased with the proportions.

After I am satisfied with the outline I simply convert the shape to a solid fill. I start to add shut lines and other details making adjustments to the proportions—ensuring they relate well to each other.

Next I use gradations, transparent layering, shadows and highlights on the body sections to bring out subtle surfacing details.

After all the detailing is complete I can add elements to the background and reflective details of items in the foreground.

See Kelly’s step by step progress of a MG Roadster.

Find out more about Kelly and her artwork on her website: http://www.kellynewcomb.com

The initial pencil sketch I like to focus on lines which will be my lightest and darkest areas in the final painting.

Background wash is applied. When working with transparent watercolors, it is important when layering colors to allow each layer to completely dry.

Unlike most watercolorists, I tend to pick out my darkest areas first. With the fine detail I tend to work in, this aids my ability to focus on what I feel is important in my work…contrast.

The grills are very important when working with cars…they are close to its signature. At this point in my work, if I am not satisfied with the grill and the lights..I will start the painting over. I was very satisfied, I achieved great depth and definition…this one is a go!

A base color paint is mixed to satisfaction, this being alizarin crimson
mixed with cobalt blue and burnt umber. Washes are applied, again, allowing each coat to dry in between applications.

As I continue layering washes, I begin to add more blues and browns to the base color for the darkest washes.

While the washing process is happening, I continue to work with the chrome, by adding washes of blue and brown, and applying touches of the base color to the reflections on the chrome.

When the large flat washes are complete, great care is taken to achieve depth on the body with the darkest wash application.

With my famous #2 sable, I literally comb every inch of the painting with blue and brown. There is satisfaction for me when the painting becomes a real visual image, touchable.

Finished painting. Happy dance!

Lemorris Harris takes us from pencil sketch to finished artwork using Illustrator and Photoshop with his “How-To” called “Don’s Land Cruiser”.
See more of Lemorris’s artwork at his web site:
http://www.lemorris.com

Assignment:
Land Cruiser

Music Choice:
Zero 7 … especially the song Somersault

Back Story:
Don is a former co-worker and good friend. His wife Mel is a current co-worker and a good friend as well. For years Don had wanted me to draw his Land Cruiser. He went as far as to go to ebay and bid on hard to find VW parts he knew I wanted so he could trade. The evil hands of time brought forth the demon of inevitable change and Don ended up taking another job. I was sad.

Things took a turn for the better when Don’s wife Mel approached me about drawing Don’s Land Cruiser as a special Christmas gift for him. I knew it would be a challenge as his vehicle has a lot of individual personality as do most extremely loved vehicles. I accepted the commission and went online immediately to find reference. It became clear that finding reference that would be suitable would be next to impossible. I needed pictures of Don’s Land Cruiser in order to draw Don’s Land Cruiser.

Mel and I hatched a scheme and executed it to perfection. Mel called Don over to our office. Once he arrived she pretended to need to show him something somewhere. I was in “stealth mode” at the front counter and pulled one of those cool Magic Johnson spin moves as Don and Mel walked past me. While Mel had Don on the snipe hunt I ran outside and took about 30 pictures of his Land Cruiser.

A few things struck me right away. I could tell he loved the vehicle. It was a little rough around the edges. His license plate was kinda crooked. He had some age spots on it. The winch had seen some use. This wasn’t your average never see the offroad…offroad vehicle. He had missing wheel parts and yet you could tell from one glance that he loved this truck.

What follows is a series of screen captures and explanations so you can see the things I was working on and you can read some of the thoughts that were going through my head.

Enjoy!

Stage 1: The pencil work.

I sifted through my pictures and finally settled on a shot I thought would work for me. I took into consideration the angle and the point of view. I knew I wanted a little lower point of view because I felt like I wanted this piece to seem larger than life to a certain degree. I also had taken several shots of the wheels and suspension bits because I thought it might be important to know what was going on under there. Many times in the past I have just made “shadow” my friend and taken “artistic license” and buried everything I could in darkness so I wouldn’t have to draw all the detail. I decided early on that this piece would not go that route. I stepped up to the plate…check swing strike 1 on my first sketch. Tip foul, strike 2 on the second sketch. Then…with ice water in my veins…I leaned forward and……….. got hit by the third pitch so I got to first base.

Stage 2: The Illustrator work.

Next I put the scanned pencil work in Illustrator. I made the layer a template layer and began the tedious process of redrawing the entire sketch. This is always the hardest part and by the time it’s done I find that I don’t like myself much. I start to believe that if I was in school with myself I would lock myself in a locker. Sometimes art hurts on the inside.

In this step you can see how I duplicated the main elliptical shape and just kinda set it to the side. Since a lot of the inner wheel is based off the same elliptical degree this piece becomes a very valuable piece in “time-saving” land. I also started working on the tire tread. I found out that street rubber is much easy to draw, however if you skip the 4×4 tread on the 4×4, then you’re doing yourself and your customer a dis-service.

Here you can see the finished Illustrator work. The blue lines will be black in the final drawing and the red lines indicate hilite and shadow areas. Normally at this point there is a big sigh of relief followed by a jumping up into a hip gyrating-fingers pointing at monitor-neck wiggling-scrunchy face-trash talking dance sequence which is of course followed up by uncontrollable sobbing and thumb sucking in the fetal position. Like I said before. The detail in this piece was extremely rewarding.

These 2 captures show the individual files I save of each layer by itself with the lines turned black. Now I need to add a note here as I found out that sometimes art has a sense of humor…a cruel cruel sense of humor. I normally make my lines .5 points think in most spots with the main contour line being 1.5 points thick and selected lines being 1 point thick. I’ve found in the past that when I do that I end up with small gaps between color when I render. that being the case I thought I would out-smart myself and make the inner lines .3 points thick…should work right?…..right?

Stage 3: The Photoshop work.

Here you can see I brought over my lineart files on separate Photoshop spot color channels and started to render the truck. I like to start with the hardest part first and in general for me that is always the tires and rims. Tires and rims make the car in my opinion. All the age and character in Don’s Land cruiser can be seen in his wheels and tires.

It was at this early stage that I immediately regretted my decision to make my Illustrator line .3 point. In photoshop I make selections in the open spaces between lines then I expand them by 1 or 2 pixels so the black line will trap the color. It’s like a coloring book. Anyway as soon as I made selections in the spaces the .3 point outlines when converted lose a little of their thickness sorta. This created tiny gaps in some lines so when I selected the spaces between the lines my selection kept escaping! Then I had to zoom way in and physically draw over the line where the gap was.

What does all that mean?

Let me see if I can explain it another way…..I MESSED UP!

Actually I found a decent solution. I selected everything on the lineart channels and filled them black a couple of few times. This seemed to thicken them a little. I still had some escapees, but it got better. Next time I will be a little more careful and make sure I don’t have to go there.

Here’s the finished wheels. At this point I was re-energized. This vehicle was unique for me for several reasons. One was that for the first time I based the rims on a warm grey instead of a cool grey. I wasn’t sure it would fly but it ended up being the perfect choice for achieving the aged rugged look I was after. I rendered the tires with my usual Pantone 430 base color with black airbrushed over it. At this point I did another little gyrate hip dance thing, but not much because I had to keep working.

It was at this stage that I finally started to see what the land Cruiser was going to be. I continued to use the warm greys with a few shades of brown and some rich reds. I was pleased with how the rusty look on the springs came out and there’s a shape just under the driver side headlight that I fell in love with.

I forgot to mention the winch. That was fun. That little bit of yellow really set things off. In this stage the grill started to come around and I made an executive decision about the lights. I was thinking about adding the lines to give them a more realistic lens type of effect but it seemed like it needed a couple of things that were not “real”. Some “graphics”….I decided to let them fly simple and add more later if I felt they needed it.

Here you can see I decided I needed to see more of this thing so I rendered in some of the body touches. In the past I waited to add my whites but I was chompin at the bit and I just had to know. When I dropped those little tiny hot white spots on the hood I did another dance thing. The music was slow, it was a Zero 7 song so I looked kinda silly but I didn’t care that much.

I went back in and finished up the lights and once again I felt they were fine without the lens look. I also crawled up the windshield a bit. At this point I was “full on” and it was really coming together pretty fast for me. I was pretty sure I could finish it in a couple of hours and It was sorta late so I went to bed and got up at 4 a.m. to knock out the last part.

Well my “couple of hours” started at 4 a.m. and ended about 10 a.m. In between my car started running with 1 of my carbs wide open so it sounded like I was doin 70 miles per hour at every stop light. Even Mistie’s breaking didn’t get me too down though. I finished this piece. I decided to use a cool grey on the seats. You can see what a different look you get with warm and cool greys by looking at the seats and the rims. Both have black tones airbrushed over them but they take on completely different characteristics.

I was never really sure what was under the seat but I think I captured it pretty well. The fire extinguisher was another favorite of mine. By adjusting the percentages on the reds and shading with slightly different tones I was able to render it so you know what it is right away.

Here is the design as printed and framed for my friend Don. To date this is the most detailed piece I have ever done. It was challenging and I learned an awful lot. I know that Don won’t see this page until Christmas Day and I’m sitting here smiling as I type because I know if he’s 1/10th as pleased as I am, he’s going to be incredibly pleased.

I want to thank Mel for giving me shot with this one and for understanding how much it meant to me.

out

-Lemorris

Steven Cavalieri gives us another example of how he created an original automotive racing poster for the first 24 Hours of LeMons using a mixture of computer and traditional pastel illustration.

Steven studied art back in the 1970s before computers were accessible for this type work. He has since embraced this new media along with traditional methods to produce some interesting and fun results. The 24 Hours of Lemons is the creation of Jay Lamm, editor of Corvette Magazine and automotive provocateur. It is an endurance race for $500 cars. The creative brief was to design a poster reminiscent of early LeMans races with a twist: use a Pinto and Gremlin instead of a Porsche and Ferrari as the automotive subjects.

See more of Steven’s artwork at his web site: http://homepage.mac.com/creative_guy

Since I couldn’t just go out to the front yard and draw a still life of the scene, I have to make up the composition. The Gremlin is on its roof!

I sketched a rough layout for approval from Jay and then I proceeded to create drawings of the cars independently. I transferred the individual drawings to one sheet of vellum to create my final composition.

I added a wash of black chalk with Bestine solvent to the back of a sheet as a basis to transfer the line art to charcoal paper. Then I retrace the line art I have already created to complete the transfer. This process allows you to re-apply and transfer line art to as many sheets as you desire.

Once I have the line art positioned I start illustrating with color pastels. I usually start with the lightest colors. Working on colored paper makes this obvious since there is already value density to the working surface.

Then as I work add the darker colors while adding details and blending along the way. It’s easy to over work pastels, but since this is a poster for a weird “over-the-top” event, I’m not worried about over working it.

I photographed the pastel art on a easel taking care to get the least amount of distortion while maintaining all the textural detail of the pastels and paper.

Once on the computer I decided to move the hue and color balance of the digital file to get an extreme value shift for drama, especially considering the subject matter. Then I added the title, logos, and supporting text to create the final poster.

Close up image showing detail.

This is a visual explanation behind the creation of Grant Thomas’ watercolour painting “360 Reflections” – a detail of the rear boot of a Ferrari 360 Spyder reflecting the windows of the Ferrari of Ontario dealership in which it was sitting.
Multi-award winning Canadian automotive artist Grant Thomas, has his work as part of personal collections in Canada, the US, the UK and as far aways as Australia. While known for his watercolours, he is always advancing and experimenting, currently undertaking oil on canvas and more abstract steel constructs combined with canvas painting, both excitedly received. While sometimes painting other marques, Grant’s favourite has always been Ferrari – both their road and race cars.

Find out more about Grant and his artwork on his website: http://www.grantthomasdesigns.htmlplanet.com

First is a tonal study sketch to determine the darkest darks (air intake & lower left) and lights (upper right) and to nail down the composition. I wanted the door handle but it disrupted the compostion to my eye, so it had to go (sadly). A small colour study was done as well.

Starting at the far end of the boot and working forward. The goal is to make the farthest reds more orange and lighter and going more alizarin/blood red as you move forward. I realize this is opposite to the artist’s rule that states “cooler colours recede, warmer colours advance” but the light source is at the top and I want the brighter reds nearer the light.

Starting to model the air intake and moving forward with the bodywork.

More intense rendering of the intake and starting to introduce more evident alizarin crimson reds to the closer sections of the car.

Now starting the interior seating area of the car. Definite purple hues in this area. This section will become much darker as it is in definite shade, only lit by reflected light and the (comparatively) dull lights of the dealership in which I shot the picture. Also began the nondescript background/floor. This will remain just a meandering wash of blues, purples & neutrals.

Darkening the interior quite a bit. Starting to block in the rubber areas, taking artist’s licence with the blacks and using purples instead. Black would have created an unpleasant effect. I try never to use it. More intense modeling of the air intake as well.

Starting the leather areas. Darkening it behind where the window glass is.

Clarifying the seats with sharper rendering and stitching/piping/embossing details. Added the white highlight edge of the glass with opaque paint. Body panel seams rendered using purple. Again, I try never to use black.

Left the engine cover octagonal grating for last as it was going to be time-consuming. First I constructed the grate flat using Adobe Illustrator on a Macintosh. I then scanned in the blank section of the painting and warped the grate to fit my painting’s perspective. Using a printout and graphite, I traced it down to the painting and then rendered it using dark purple, going slightly lighter towards the rear. Finished up by tightening up edges, window marking details etc.

About The Artist:
Igor Sadovy is an artist of Russian origin with University degrees in Romance Languages and a Physiotherapy diploma. He has been painting from the early age of six, remaining enchanted by the winter forest seeings of Northen Russia, where he spent his childhood.

His mother (doctor in medicine and painter), gave him the inspiration to draw and paint in water colours. During his military service and University period in Russia, he partecipated in various courses for young artists.

In 1989 he emigrated to Italy, where he exibited his collection of drawings and paintings in the Italian cities of Genoa, Bologna, Turin, Milan, and later in Los Angeles and Monte Carlo.

Starting from 1998 he has begun to change his style of artwork, trying to create a more spectacular images which you will no doubt get from the Formula 1 race itself.

Categories:
Classic Car and Motorsport

Website:
http://www.ferrarimodelsclub.it/ferrigor.htm