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Automotive

ArtistRichaRd Lewis

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic CarSeptember, 2008 - Mark J. McCourt

Few artists, and even fewer non-professional artists, have the patience and drive to spend upwards of 200 hours on a single piece, to create their own watercolor painting technique, to delve headfirst into the complicated world of reflected chrome and mile-deep paint. Then again, few automotive artists, aside from English-born California

resident Richard Lewis, have an educational background in architecture, a career in structural engineering and a passion for cars that dates back to childhood, with the goal of becoming a full-time automotive artist who dreams of showing at the Automotive Fine Arts Society (AFAS) tent at Pebble Beach.

“I’ve always liked cars, and my dad was into cars... he always had Jaguars and the like. Growing up in Los Angeles, it was like a rolling car show everywhere; you could see every car possible,” Richard remembers. “We were always taking trips when I was a kid, and I could identify cars at night from their head- and taillamps... I was right about 80 percent of the time.

“I doodled cars all through high school and college. Back in the early Eighties, while in college, I worked at my father’s electronic engineering firm doing odd jobs on the weekends. Sometimes I created small presentations on the computer for his company. I started taking pictures and translating them on the computer--I’d clean, then draw, then clean again as the computer worked.

“Back then there was no mouse: I used a tablet and pen, and the plotter only had 8 pens. To get deeper colors, you had to trace in layers. The amount of data that it took to create one piece filled up six 10-inch floppy discs, and it would take eight hours to create a large piece... and this was a big HP business computer! Back then, no one had heard of computer art,” Richard continues.

“It wasn’t until I finished studying to be an architect in 1989 that I picked up this hobby. I’d been working on classes and school projects for 18 hours a day, and when I got a job, it was only eight hours. I decided to learn how to use watercolors, so I bought red, black and yellow paint... so my first few cars were Italian. Working on the computer had taught me patience, and I figured that watercolors would be similar to using that program--I’d have to work in layers, allowing them to dry in between so that the previous layers wouldn’t get blown out. Cars were a natural for my subjects, and focusing on design elements even reminded me of architecture.”

The birth of his fraternal twin sons, Morgan and Chris, and his subsequent parental duties, meant that Richard took a few years off from creating art. Upon his return to his hobby, he found that his twins offered inspiration, leading to his “Fraternal” series of related cars whose paint and chrome reflect on themselves and each other.

“Through painting cars, I have learned to see so much more in them,” he explains. “And the more I paint, the more I see. The forms, shapes and reflections have become much more interesting to me than just the car itself. It is actually rare

see RichaRd Lewis

that I want to do a painting of just a car... it’s now more that I want to paint all the distorted reflections on the chrome and body, as much for the challenge as for the end result.”Early on, Richard would find his subjects in magazines and books; today he uses the photographs he’s taken. “I often prefer not to use a background, to allow the car to tell a story by itself,” he says. “The Alfa that I’m currently painting was shot at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance two years ago. Taking reference photos of reflections at a car show is difficult because of the people who are behind me--one lady’s reflection warped over the entire fender, but I liked that effect. I’d taken 10 shots in a row, and picked the one I liked the most.

“When I start, I mix colors for a few hours. By the time I’ve finished a painting, I probably have as many as 40 hours in mixing colors. My first shades on the paper are so light, like the weakest tea you can imagine. I begin building out the colors that I want in there, doing the darkest colors last. When I’m working on a big sheet of paper, I’ll work in different areas each night to let those parts dry, while other are over-painted while wet. I like to punch up the chrome

work, and may drop out some reflections. It’s just layer after layer of color, and when they’re done, blacks look like velvet. There are so many colors [in the reflections] that the eyes don’t see them, but the mind does. I haven’t come across anyone else who does this.”

Because he paints in his off-hours and works in so many layers, a single piece can take 400 hours and three to four months to complete. After building a portfolio of automotive pieces, Richard began marketing them over the Internet, also gaining admirers through his solo exhibition at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan, and showings at the San Diego Automotive Museum. AFAS member Tom Hale invited him to show at the 2006 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival, and Richard is a member of the Guild of Motoring Artists.

In addition to his originals and commissioned pieces, Richard sells signed and numbered limited-edition giclée prints of many of his pieces; most of those are available in four sizes that range in price from $99.95 to $995.95.

duesey chrome“This was one of my top three longest-to-do pieces. There’s actually another car reflected in this one as well, a brown-beige Packard reflected in the headlamp. I liked how this showed the fender reflecting back on itself--a lot of chrome reflects back and forth three or four times, and it’s a real challenge to get that back-and-forth. Some things in the picture I’ll fade out, while others I’ll punch up so that they’ll read better. The mesh on the side hood was one of these--it took tiny strokes to get that mesh to look like it was bending back and forth over itself.”

1930s cord“This computer art was patterned after a picture I found in a calendar that hung by one of the desks in my dad’s office. I thought it would be a challenge to see if I could make it look right with the limited palette available on the computer.”

RichaRd Lewis cont.

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1931 V-16 cadillacs“Both images are actually the same car, and it belonged to a Japanese collector. They were moving it around behind my office, so I took a bunch of photos. I shot it at the height of the hood ornament, and found another [rear three-quarters] shot at that same height. I kept the colors of the background car muted so that it didn’t detract from the subject.”

auburn“I found this image in a magazine or book, and it’s a piece I did around 1991. I tried to color in the car a shade I call ‘dusty rose,’ to make it look a little different than a typical painting. [The Auburn Speedster is] always a gorgeous car to look at, and there was a nice feeling of color beyond the whole car. I was happy that I got it to feel and look right; it was a nice step up in my work.”

Pierce-arrow Grille“This car was in the driveway at Hill and Vaughn. I shot it through the fence. I used a wide-angle lens to make the body fade away, and to get the reflections of things like phone poles to bend away. The way that grille looked--I had to paint it, each slat. I should have spent more time on the hood ornament, but I allowed it to fade out... the subject was the grille.”

310-849-8119www.rlewisstudio.com