Artist Toolbox – Art from James Owens

James Owens – Featured Hot Rod Artist

Everybody could use a little more creativity to fuel their lives – so we’re kicking off a new feature here at MyRideisMe! In our Artist Toolbox series, we’ll introduce you to a new hot rod inspired artist and bring you a tutorial from the artist themselves. So not only will you get the opportunity to learn about some fantastic, creative geniuses – but you might learn a thing or two as well!

Some people out there hear the word “art” and think of fancy-schmancy galleries and a bunch of stuffed shirts. Others hear “low brow art” and assume it’s something the wife wouldn’t allow hanging in the house.

No matter what you think of hot rod art, you’re in for a surprise! The artists we’ll spotlight in the Artist Toolbox series create high-class, fun, and hot-rod inspired pieces of beauty. They put the same sort of grit and heart into their works of art as we all put into our cars.

This month’s feature artist is James Owens. Originally out of Detroit, James has single-handedly coined the phrase “car noir.” Art should pick up where photography leaves off – and James Owens gives art a run for its money. Looking at his works of beauty is like driving through a porthole of your favorite noir movie (in your favorite car of course!)

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Hear from James what he has to say himself…

MRIM Since My Ride is Me, which ride would you chose as most representative of yourself?

JO: “Letsee, the ride that is most representative of me would be a 48-53 stepdown Hudson convertible, no wait, a KUSTOM 48-52 stepdown Hudson convertible. Scratch that, a 1953 Cadillac! No, hold on a sec… a 1949 Buick Sedanette! That’s it. Wait back the bus up for minute,  a hot rodded Model A. Yup that’s it! No STOP! Oh crap don’t make me pick just one.”

MRIM Are you as artful when working in the garage as in the studio?

JO: “Am I as artful when working in the garage as in the studio? Hmmm… I’m going to say yes to that. I think it is very creative when I use a wrench as a hammer because I can never find my frikin’ tools!”

MRIM Is painting your full-time day job?

JO: “Yes painting is my full time day job. But I also do a bit of acting on the side. Hey that’s one reason I moved back to Tennessee from Los Angeles. Believe it or not I work more as an actor in the southeast than I did in SoCal. Crazy man, crazy!”

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Read on, to see how James creates his car noir art in his tutorial, The Dame Wore Red.

To check out more of his art or purchase some of your very own, visit James Owen’s on the web at car-noir.com.

Click here for Hot Rod Art from James Owens

 

Waves at Pebble Beach Concours – Hot Rod Art

Hot Rod Art by Tom Fritz at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

(Click picture for full size) “What D’Ya Reckon She’ll Do?” – Oil on canvas, 41″ x 27″

Catch Hot Rod Artist and overall cool-guy at the upcoming Pebble Beach car show. Tom Fritz art has been featured several times here at MyRideisMe.com for a simple reason: Tom’s paintings inspire! Tom captures the coolest hot rods and vintage motorcycles in vivid colors, but what you’ll remember is the emotion seen in every painting. You’ll wonder, what’s that guy thinking?

It’s my pleasure to see Tom all over SoCal and at Barrett Jackson in Arizona, and it will be yours too at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The show runs from August 17-21 with the Automotive Fine Arts Society (AFAS) Exhibition on Sunday, August 21.

Here’s Tom prepping you for the show and his new paintings:

Two globs of oil are scooped up and shmushed onto the sheet of glass I use as a palette. A couple quick swirls and the color is pretty close to what I’m looking for. A little modification with a previously mixed color satisfies my eyeball, so I scoop it up with the brush, turn back to the canvas, and…

I look at the painting. Nothing. I look again, expanding the cone of my vision. Still nothing. I hold up my hand-mirror and look at the image in the mirror. The loaded brush is still sitting in my grip, locked, loaded, but just idling…

Another look.

That moment is here. The moment when another stroke is unnecessary; anything else I do to the painting won’t add a thing. It’s finished. The painting is finished. It’s not done… cakes are ‘done’ — paintings are finished, and that moment has arrived. Sign it, varnish it, frame it, throw it in the truck and get it up to Pebble Beach for the annual show.

What no-one ever sees is the jig I do when I discover I’ve just completed the last of the three “never-before-displayed” paintings required for the Automotive Fine Arts Society (AFAS) show at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. I call it a jig, because that’s what it is. It’s not really a cavort. A cavort is that dance we artists do after making a sale, or after the judge considers your paintings aren’t good enough to be considered community property.

I counted them. I lined up the canvases and counted… one, two, three… four.
Huh?
Four? I counted them again. Shit. Four. I created FOUR NEW paintings.

Good thing no one was in the studio shooting video because I started busting moves like M.C. Hammer. Can you imagine if this video showed up at my sanity hearings?

Well, so there I was, all worn out, out of breath, wondering how I’d explain my footprints in the “cottage cheese” on the studio ceiling to Molly, when the thought occurred… “I gotta show these to people”. And then I thought of all my friends who wouldn’t be able to be at the show.

So here y’all go. Here are the four paintings. One of them will be reserved as my choice for the judging for the Peter Helck Award (Best of Show as determined by the artists themselves).

The paintings are reserved for sale at the Pebble Beach Exhibition, but prints are available of all four. Hollar at me if you just gotta have one.
-Tom Fritz
www.fritzart.com
tom@fritzart.com
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“Incident At Twenty Mile” – Oil on canvas, 36″ x 18″

“Locals” – Oil on canvas, 36″ x 30″

“Out Quicker Than A Hiccup” – Oil on canvas, 48″ x 24″

If you can’t get enough of Tom’s art, check out how he creates it in this story. It’s one of the best at MyRideisMe.com. I just wish I wrote it!

The making of “Quick Sombish

 

 

 

 

Drawing Cars – Blown Dodge A-100!

Car Concept Drawings that’ll blow your mind!

This little Dodge A-100 has been the one piece of my work that gets me more emails, calls, letters and requests for re-prints than any other I’ve sketched. This car concept drawing’s just got that something that makes people grin, and everyone just seems to get it. It’s fun, it’s irreverent, it’s obnoxious… It sums up my earliest inspirations and daydreams in one bright orange, low-slung package, and looks like it just did something wrong… And, frankly, it doesn’t give a shit. It’s my inner child, street machine-style, hyped-up on orange soda and pizza.

I began drawing cars after a career move from cubicles to cubic off-road insanity. I was designing project cars and doing car concept drawings for clients at night and on weekends, and managing them during the day at that new job. My personal artwork was taking on a realistic appearance out of necessity, but the wild style within still wanted to play. One day in late 2006, I let it out in the form of this orange hued bit of my ID, now simply known in the studio as the A-Tona, which I sketched up for a Truckin’ Magazine Radical Renderings feature.

Recently, I went in a touched a few things up. Here’s a look at the original A-Tona car drawing for reference:

There were just a few minor details that were glossed over on the first go-round, due to excitement of getting it on paper, as well as squeezing in the sketch to make a magazine deadline. I never felt like it was finished at that point, and toyed with things like detailing, touching-up the reflections, and getting the stance perfect… not to mention those wild, concave wheels. This thing had to have them to portray that feeling of Hot Wheels car coming to life.

I set aside a few moments here and there over the past year, and just picked away, and decided to release a few prints into the world again. After all, it’s been good to me! This mighty little ass-hauling chunk of evil deserves to go back into circulation with some fitting dignity… Even if it chooses to muscle its way into my mind each day. You don’t argue with a big man carrying a baseball bat, and the A-Tona was not to be denied.

These will be limited to 150 pieces, and will be signed (I’ll personalize yours, if you’d like!), and retired once the last print hits the mail. I wanted to offer one on MyRideisMe.com because it’s been Craig’s site and friendship that have provided a ton of inspiration to me over the years, and what better place to let this thing run wild? The design and art are a part of me… very fitting, considering that MRIM is all about that connection between man and machine.

Thanks for reading along, and here’s hoping that you continually find that enjoyment and excitement in your life, and make the most of whatever it is that inspires you. And if you’re like me, and your imagination is running wild on the streets during your commute, look for me. I’ll be the guy in the wildly-raked, screaming yellow ‘Cuda with the fire bellowing out of the side pipes.  Give me a wave over at ProblemChildKustoms.com

From Photo to a Watercolor Painting -It’s Car art

Hot Rod Art

It started as an email to MyRideisMe.com to see if I would grant permission for an artist to use a photo he found. Thanks to artists Paul And Kimberly Buford for doing the right thing! Turns out, it wasn’t my photo, it was taken at Viva Las Vegas by Paul “Swanee” Swanson. Turns out, this is a popular photo:

Cars like this Chevy fit right in at Viva and original “Patina” has never been more popular. So I asked Paul some questions about his artwork. Keep in mind, about all I know about artwork and painting is what I like…

Why watercolors? – I’ve worked in several different media, and always come back to watercolors. The idea that you are staining the paper is what I love, and the way the colors mix together either in the palette or on the paper.

Why this image (and others similar)? – I have always been drawn to decayed or decaying items (whether it be old buildings, collapsed barns, or abandoned/aged cars). The more I studied them and thought about what it was I got from them the more I realized that it isn’t the image at all… it’s the history of the image. At some point all these items were new, someone took pride in building them, events happened in and around them as they aged. Dents, rust, rot, algae, etc, are beautiful representations of just this, they are visual characteristics that there is indeed a story there. However, you may never know the story, and that lets your imagination go wild!  What “could have” happened here? Things like that… THEN, I came across rat rods and what most would consider “unfinished street rods”! This was pure controlled chaos! They are like someone is able to harness all this decay into functional art.

Kinds of cars I like? – Rat Rods, no doubt. It literally takes a genius to pull off a rat rod. Also, as mentioned above, the “unfinished” street rods… they are a testament to people who have enough control over themselves to resist the shiny new $5000 show quality paint job and maintain the visual “history” of the vehicle. I’m not discounting the other types of vehicles, I pretty much like them all, these are the ones that speak to me most. Oh, and motorcycles… fast, minimal, loud, NOT stock… can’t forget those!

Thanks Paul! Hopefully you’ll find a picture of mine you like some time… good thing I’ll be at Viva Las Vegas again this year! You can reach Paul and Kimberly Buford at their website: BreakNECK Watercolors

Turns out, this has been a popular picture to reproduce. Swanee out-did himself with this one!

To find out more about this image and the artist, go to his Deviant Art Page for Tony 231

We’d love to hear your comments and if you’re doing anything similar, let me know! Maybe we can do a story on you too!

For one of the best hot rod art stories at MyRideisMe.com, check out Tom Fritz’s work.

Motorburg Design Center at 41st NSRA Nats

Meet the Artists and Participate in the Working Studios!

Motorburg announced that it would be presenting a “Design Center” attraction at the 2010 N.S.R.A. Nationals in Louisville, KY – August 5th through the 8th.

Motorburg.com, the online resource for automotive designers, artists and enthusiasts, with an emphasis on rods & customs, will be heading up this uniquely entertaining venue.

Motorburg.com features art and design galleries by an associate group of some of the hottest artists and designers in the industry as well as a thriving Forum of international talent. Increasingly, it’s becoming the “go to place” for an ever-changing array of articles and tutorials for all who appreciate the form and function of the American style of custom built automobile.

Motorburg’s associate artist list reads like a “who’s who” of rod & custom art and design and includes: Darrell Mayabb – Thom Taylor – Jimmy Smith – C. Cruz – Greg Tedder – Ralph Burch – Brian Stupski – C. Smith… as well as CARtoon greats Nelson Dewey and Errol McCarthy. The Design Center gallery will display art by these associates as well as prints and portfolios by Motorburg’s talented forum members.

Additionally, the exhibit will display several rods and customs designed by the stylists, along with drawings and illustrations involved in the actual build.

The exhibit will feature the Charlie Smith designed 1941 Buick Centurion Roadster :

This 1986 design by C. Smith will be on display at the “Design Center”.

…a removable-top beauty built by the late Egon Necelis and still turning heads after more than twenty years “on the road”.

Of special interest will be the display of the “Invader” :

… America’s Most Beautiful Roadster in both 1967 & ‘68 and the subject of a Motorburg Forum design challenge.

You’ll also get to watch as artists work in the exhibit’s two design studios, in traditional and digital fashion. The public is invited to get up close and personal as the designers do their magic on paper and monitor.

So, stop by and “talk shop” with the artists, builders and industry guests at the “Motorburg Design Center”. They’re in space 1001 through 1003 at this year’s NSRA 41st Annual Street Rod Nationals August 5 – 8, 2010 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

* Join the Forum and read more about the Design Center HERE.

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