Motorcycle Art

I really enjoy drawing- and motorcycles! Of course if I actually owned a motorcycle I'd probably seriously injure myself so I console myself by drawing pictures of them. I enjoy drawing them because, much like a bicycle, I consider them to be functional art and you can see all the mechanical bits. I especially like racing bikes as they are so clean without all the lights and such that street bikes have.

I do all my drawings using a 4H drafting pencil, an eraser and a tissue. I tend to prefer illustration board as it holds up well to my erasing- I make lots of mistakes! I generally start with a freehand light line drawing and then refine that. Getting the wheels right is probably the hardest part. Once I'm happy with that I start filling in and shading and then I blend in areas using a tissue and then pull out highlights with the eraser.

While I have done paintings in oils and acrylics (not of motorcycles) there is just something that is so simple and elegant about pencil drawing that makes it far and away my favorite 2D art form. I have recently started drawing on the computer using a tablet and it's super fun but it's a challenging transition- I'm floored by the artwork people do on computers today.

The drawings shown here are (in order) the Britten V1100, Cagiva V591 GP bike, Honda/Elf 2 experimental endurance racer and Harley VR1000 race bike. Out of the four drawings the Britten V1100 is my favorite. John Britten was the ultimate maker- the entire bike was made by hand by himself and his friends. He heat treated the engine castings in his wife's pottery kiln, formed the body work patterns using welding wire and foam, made his own carbon fiber chassis, wheels and bodywork and completely changed the way a lot of people in the motorcycle industry looked at motorcycles. Many of his engineering concepts had been done before but he was one of the first guys to put them all together into a very competitive machine that took on the big manufacturers. I gave this drawing to a neighbor of mine that lost his leg in a motorcycle accident as he's a huge Britten fan and whenever we meet we always talk about motorcycle technology and design. Whenever I look at the Britten I'm always inspired to go out in the garage and work on my own bicycle projects. :)

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