Ink & watercolor in Raffine 6×9 sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “all sizes”)
My son Cody is an excellent car mechanic, specializing in customizing 60s and 70s muscle cars like his 1970 Firebird. He wanted to put a drawing of his car on his new business cards. I said I’d give it a try but somehow managed to take his beautiful Firebird and turn it into a jalopy. I knew the proper way to do this would be to start with some pencil sketches, or work from a photo of the car in Illustrator or Painter, but I had a stressful day and just felt like drawing directly in ink for fun. (Sorry Cody, maybe you do need to contact that guy who does car illustrations or my blogger friend France at Wagonized who can really draw cars.)
In case you’re interested in “muscle” cars and want to see pictures and video of his handiwork, you can visit Cody’s website. There’s even a video of his car in my driveway with the engine running with full sound effects. I guess he made that video on the day that he put the car all back together and it worked! That must be a thrilling experience to take a car apart until it’s just a shell and then spend a year designing, building and reassembling every part of it. He replaced the engine with one he built, starting from scratch with the biggest Chevy engine block ever made. Many parts had to be specially custom-designed and built for the car. Cody used to be a wonderful artist himself, doing amazing drawings and spray-painted murals (also known as graffiti) and is still my best art critic, always knowing exactly what a painting needs. Now I guess he’s more of a sculptor, making cars into moving pieces of art. He’s a great problem-solver, incredibly determined and persistent (wonder where he gets that?) and a terrific mechanic. If you need work done on your car in the East Bay, you can reach him by email: CodyBouc@yahoo.com
Jana Bouc, Artist 
11 replies on “Sorry Cody”
Jana – I’ve just spent an hour and a half that I should have spent sleeping, looking through 2 1/2 pages of your blog. Needless to say, I LOVE your art! Thank you so much for posting all these great sketches! I was doing a search for examples of drawing water with pen and ink, as I need some examples to look at to help improve my drawings when I ended up here. I’m in the North Bay, so it was neat to see so many familiar places. Thanks again for sharing!
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It’s really cool you are talking about your son and that he wants your help with his business. I think its so amazing to watch one’s kids grow up and claim thier space as adults! Feels like very rich, creative work. (mostly) I love the drawing…looks like a fast car in your drawing
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As always your take on your world is awesome. I love how you paint your surroundings and give us a taste of what your up to. You have inspired me to do the same. I’m still practicing sketching people with not much success. I think another class is needed for that. Yesterday at a morning meeting I kept looking around at people to sketch, but I didn’t have paper…whats an artist to do..I drew on the tissuse box.. I thought of you!
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Jana! I think it’s grand! And more than that — that your son wants you involved! WAY TO GO MOM! I too like France’s car drawings and when I opened this I immediately thought that your style of drawing it looked remarkedly similiar — and it made me smile — the car looks approachable!! And not simply steel and rubber!
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It looks like a 1970 Firebird for sure — with maybe a slight cold. 🙂
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Wow, love the color and reflections in this car.
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Never even heard of muscle cars. Now I know. Maybe you should draw some muscles on your car here and make it a fun illustration, or draw a muscle bound dude leaning on it and making it lean to the left (which it does, tee hee). Of course I like the movement in your sketch. Anyone can take a picture of a car. You’ve given it some pizzazz. Looks like it’s about to peel rubber.
Oh, by the way, I discovered another way to use the splatter grate – you put the paint on top and then blow it onto the paper. Works swell!
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very nice! and a reminder to me to try and draw cars more, I have a hard time getting the proportions and perspective correct, I should practice it more.
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great sense of depth and character, lovely line work too. Doesn’t matter at all if the shapes a little strange – enhances it, I think.
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Looks cool! Cody sounds like a Leonardo actually, a man of many talents! My teenage son would drool over car specs too – males are funny creatures ;)!
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It’s not a jalopy; it’s a really nice piece of artwork! Easy enough to take a photo — this is ever so much better and more interesting! Great job!
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