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| 5/5/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Pitt Artist's brush pen, Canson XL 140 lb. paper |
The whole time I was savoring Oldies But Goldies, Lapin’s book of sketches of vintage cars, I marveled not only at the beautiful
sketches but also the fact that most of the cars had been parked on city
streets when he had sketched them. It’s apparently different in Barcelona where
Lapin lives, because here in Seattle, I rarely see cool old cars except at car shows and museums.
Over the weekend, we spotted a Chevrolet Deluxe parked on the next block. A beautiful black cherry
red color, it looked well-maintained but also like it sees the streets and not
just the inside of a garage. We assumed its owner was a visitor and not a
resident because we definitely had never seen it before. I kept hoping for an
opportunity to sketch it, but the rain fell almost constantly both Saturday and
Sunday. This afternoon the sun came out, and I saw my chance, so I trotted over
to it – just as a young man approached the car from the opposite direction, key
in hand.
When I told him I had been wanting to sketch his car, he said
he would be back shortly, revving the engine before pulling out. (I wish I had
thought to ask him what year it is. The Wikipedia article says they were built
in 1941 – 1952.) Sure enough, less than an hour later, I heard that engine
again, and he had kindly parked it right in front of our house. It started
sprinkling again just as I was finishing up.
Nice sketch. Too much rain where you live to have a lot of old cars on the streets. Same problem here, where a car rusts out in half a dozen years. We have an active group of car restoration folks and about June the cars come out of storage and they're driven until around Sept-Oct. Then they all disappear, not to be seen until the following summer.
ReplyDeleteCheers --- Larry
How lucky for you that he came back and you were able the sketch that classic car!!! Those old cars had such style! Nice sketch.
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