A touch of realism

The last two sketches of VW Camper vans have been stylised in my cartooning style. The front end of these images have been squarer and probably more like the original designs before the vans was put through a aerodynamic wind tunnel! This is a more traditional watercolour using layering of colour to build up the picture. I don’t often work this way preferring to use a direct painting method and mixing the colours I need on the palette and merging them on the paper. The layering technique requires more patience and drying times. I usually start a watercolour like this in the week when I haven’t much time this forces me to concentrate on each layer and to plan each brush stroke. Often to good effect.

Previous VW Camper Vans – Orange and Green

Work in Progress…

I am currently working on some ideas for a book illustration and finishing the urban sketches that I did while I was in hospital. More about that next time…

Obsession

I have been sketching VW Campers over the past weeks. I love the idea of being able to just drive away with your own private accommodation and to pull up in a layby – Of Course this is almost impossible these days with all the double yellow line parking restrictions around. I watched a programme on the Caravan channel where a woman was interviewed as she had owned caravans all her life from the 1940s onwards. She recalled being able to take a caravan to Paris and being able to park up along side the Eiffel Tower. Imagine doing that today!

In the same programme they also showed how a modern insulated caravan was made out of sheets of laminated steel and polystyrene giving a level of comfort and security of a modern day apartment building. What a striking difference to a battered VW single layer Steel constructed VW Van. And what a sad person I am for being riveted to the show.

It is my dream to own one of these vans one day with all its faults, its engine failures, its damp morning window dripping interior…My other half has given me permission to save for one. She is saving for the hotel she will be staying in!