New montage Painting

[Andrew Kitson]

Here is a 30 x 20in acrylic original I finished earlier this year for Alan Minshaw of Demon Tweeks.
Alan's cars shown are, from top left clockwise;

Lotus 7, Oulton 1961
Chevron B16, Killarney 2002
Prod Saloon Avenger GT, Oulton 1974
Prod Saloon Opel Commodore, Mallory 1977
BTCC VW Golf GTi, Snetterton 1983
Historic Ford Mustang, Donington 1996
Jaguar E-type, Spa 2002
Historic Chevrolet Malibu, Brands 1997
BTCC BMW M3, Thruxton 1988
Supersaloon Daf 55 V8, Silverstone 1975
and in the centre:
Maserati Tipo61 'Birdcage', Oulton 2002
Costin Lister Chevrolet, Silverstone 1999.

I hope you like it, really enjoyed painting this one!

[neil_davidson2]

Superb Andrew! How long did that take?

[Aysedasi]

Very sweet.

[Andrew Kitson]

Thanks Guys.
It took a few weeks on and off, but the photo above is not that great unfortunately.
A bit too light on the right hand side.

[Craig]

Where do you start doing a painting with so many subjects on it?!

[Andrew Kitson]

Hi Craig.

More often than not, with a montage such as this, there is a centrepiece, in this case the 'Birdcage' Maserati at Alan's suggestion. The other cars are arranged around it.

I make lots of small sketches, very rough, just playing around with layout. The position of each car or scene has to be considered, possibly date of each scene in sequence, colouring etc and after many of these small sketches and trying different angles of each car, the positions can be determined and then thought put to which circuit or corner. However an important win at a particular event should be included. In this picture, many of the cars are 'Demon Tweeks' red therefore the layout had to try and seperate them with the other cars as much as possible so that the red ones were not bunched together.

Once each car is pencilled onto the drawing that I do before painting, I then draw in the backgrounds and play around with these working out how and where to 'blend' them. Some of these ideas come as it is being painted. The background is usually painted first and the cars and smaller background details added last.

[andy_b]

very nice. Havent done a montage for ages. Done a couple in the past for Betrand Gachot and Andrea de Cesaris, but then Uni and Work took priority and I let things slip.

I use to play with angles and positons for ages. I tended to find that if I did sketches, photocopy them and then cut these up and play about with the layout like that. Would make or distroy a picture.

Havent done any for ages, Just about to start a new illustration, not a montage, but three SEAT's racing together. I'll start a topic when I do

[andy_b]

Andrew - all the cars on there look brillant, but very impressed with the e-type. I never can get Silver to look right. Its either to dark or two light whereas that looks perfect. Maybe its because I use markers?

Brilliant

[Andrew Kitson]

andy_b, thanks for the comments.
Silver is always a bit tricky but you just have to think about how the reflections form and how sharp they are.
We all know that a mirror is the most reflective object on the planet and chrome on a car, giving sharp reflections. A dull piece of old dusty lead is probably the least reflective object . The Minshaw E-type is a 'greyish' silver, not as reflective as most silver cars therefore with softer edges to the reflections. But yes, it must be tricky to get this effect with markers as you need to use the white of the paper I suppose. Look forward to seeing your SEAT piece.