Cars

Cars are an ongoing struggle. I should practise them more. But then, the same applies to faces, hands, skies, boats, water, ellipses and a million other things. I should have more time to explore these things, but you know how it is, the more time expands, the less time you have.

So, the conclusion I've drawn is that drawing the 3/4 view is hard. And all cars in my paintings are going to be parked face on, no matter the perspective!

I've been looking at cars in Alvaro Castagnet's paintings. Such economy of brushwork! He always makes it look so easy! I think I can break it down to a narrow windscreen reflecting warm light, a wider bonnet still reflecting light but maybe darker (depends if the sun is shining or not, really), a dark front bumper, dark dark dark wheels and shadows, and two white dots for the front lights (or red lights for a rear view).

I think these are pretty cool (from a photo I took in a car park near where we walk the dog).

My first efforts were pretty disastrous.

I know I can draw cars slowly from direct observation, but what I'm trying to do here is reach a level of abstraction where I can paint them really quickly as street furniture for urban landscapes. Irish houses can look pretty quaint and I feel that adding cars to the landscapes will help steer my paintings away from cute Oirishness. Plus, as an urban sketcher, it's about time I sketched cars, don't you think!