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Chevy Spark Concept

The Spark is a new small car from Chevrolet. The Spark production car comes from a concept car called the Beat. This artwork is based on the Beat concept car mostly because I prefer the Beat’s headlight style.

When I saw the Beat concept car the first thing I noticed was the Chevy double-grille, a style which they use on many of their vehicles. I like the double-grille look but what inspired me to do a paint scheme was the fender lines on the side of the body.

On the side of the body, the front fender has an line and the back has two lines. That back top arch pointing down to the front fender line got me wondering about how it would look if the two lines where connected.

So I started by adding a side stripe connecting the two lines but felt it needed a little more so I ended up making the whole top half of the car semi-gloss black. After doing that, I felt that the top half was too dark so I thought I would match the hood with the bottom color to break it up.

Another stripe was added to follow the body lines on the bottom of the door that stretches over the back fender. Two small stripe accents were added up above the back wheel. I finished up by using gold as the secondary color and then lowering the car overall.

Here is a link the official Chevy Spark website. Below is a video on the Chevy Beat Concept Car.

Motorcycle Hearse

I was going through some of the video I took at the Old Settler’s Parade this year and came across this motorcycle hearse.

I haven’t seen this one before and after a little research I found out it was from Clear Creek Coach.

Sorry for the splice in the middle of the video but a person got in front of me, temporarily blocking my shot, so I took that part out.

True Stories Behind Car Logos

I just came across an article titled “True Stories Behind Car Company Logos” by Nick Kurczewski. Having designed logos, I find it interesting on stories about their inspiration and symbolism.

In the article Nick writes how certain car companies created their logos. For example, the story behind the Chevy bowtie emblem is that Louis Chevrolet was inspired by a wallpaper pattern in his hotel room when he visited Paris in 1908. The true story by Mr. Chevrolet’s wife is that her husband had seen similar shaped logo and a Sunday supplement.

Another iconic emblem is Roll Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament. It was designed by Charles Sykes in 1911 and the model for the emblem was Miss Eleanor Thornton. Miss Thornton was the personal secretary of John Scott Montagu the friend of company cofounder Charles Stuart Rolls.

The article then goes on to discuss stories behind other logos such as Subaru and Hyundai. I didn’t know that Hyundai was the Korean word for “modern” and that the H represents two people, the company and customer, shaking hands.

I thought this was a good article, it told me some things I didn’t know about car company logos. Below is gallery of car logos from Flickr.

Ford Model T Artwork

Here is the finished Model T artwork that I posted about two weeks ago. You will notice on this piece of artwork that I did the Model T in percentages of one color and that color being black. The other thing that I did differently is that I chose not to use any gradations or fades.

When I first started this piece I really thought about doing it in the tans and browns to make it look like an antique photograph. A lot of times you’ll see cars of this era done in this fashion but as I started working on it from the top down and the top being black, I just continued with the look throughout the whole car.

After completing the car I started looking at a background to complement the black of the car. I started thinking about how tough these cars were in their day. Then my thoughts went to power colors and the first power color I thought of that would complement the black was red.

I like the look of this piece and I think you’ll see more artwork done this way. The completed piece measures 18 x 24.

Article on me at Auto Restoration 101

Steve Nicholson over at Auto Restoration 101 contacted me to let me know about an article he did on me and my artwork. Steve has over 20 years experience in antique auto restoration and street rod fabrication. His work has been featured and displayed at SEMA, Good Guys, Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance, and much more.

Steve also runs a couple of sites, one of which is his art site “Just for the Art of it”. There he displays all kinds of cool items which he makes from recycled parts, like the Oldsmobile timing gear and valve spring wall clock that is painted tangerine.

One of my favorites is the Spark Plug hubcap clock. It’s made from an aluminum hubcap and has 12 spark plugs that represent the hours.

He has these and other items for sale on his Etsy.com site.

Thanks for the article Steve!!

T-Model Artwork In Progress

Here’s an image of what I’ve been working on lately. As you can see all of the line art has been finished in Illustrator, and now I’m going in to add the color.

I decided to try a different approach on this particular illustration. What is different is that I am using only fill color with no gradients. Another thing I’m trying is using only percentages of one color for the whole car.

So if all goes well I should be done in the next couple of days.

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