The local Austin Healey club helped me out by letting me photograph some of their cars, so I returned the favor by doing some cartoons for their newsletter. This is good for me anyway because I’m putting together pieces to show at the All British Field Meet in Portland on Labor Day. The meet is a yearly event and always during that same holiday weekend. This year they highlight the Austin Healey, which encompasses the Sprite, the so called “Big Healey’s” such as the 3000.

Here is a reasonably typical step by step of the most recent creation which is new for the moniker as opposed to a refitted version of a previously done Lotus Europa cartoon.

After considering how I could portray the idea I settle on this design. It started out much differently but I couldn’t seem to get any models lined up so I changed the original way of presenting it and pulled photos both off the internet and from my own car sessions and went to work with them as a loose guide.

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Up against the clock, I abandoned the depiction of the other people who would be in the picture. Instead, I added the card that encourages her to look out side. She needed the nudge because she is trying to figure out why she would get this practical birthday gift. Of course, with older cars one needs tools or bank account to keep them on the road. The bank account is for hiring mechanics to do what you would do in terms of maintenence. The card urges her to look out side and see that there is more to the gift.

The card won’t be necessary when I design in someone raising the blinds and others distracting her from the window while that’s being done. Birthday celebrations involve people. In this case I’ve started out by telling the story by hinting at their involvement rather than overtly representing it.

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