Andy's Harley

This painting was done for a friend as a christmas present. The owner of the motorcycle loved the painting, especially all of the chrome and leather and the handcuffs that can be seen on the saddle pack. I tried to put the motorcycle in an environment that had a lot of motion and colourful energy to it. Even though there is nobody on the motorcycle, it looks as if it could be going full speed into the sunset.

I have done a lot of commission work, where people usually give me a photograph and ask for a painting. Working from photo is very difficult because there is often a lot of details that you would normally ignore when painting on location. So the first step is to ignore the details you don't need. For this work the entire background was invented, only the details of the chrome are real (and the handcuffs). You may recognize the technique I used for the background, it involves applying large mounts of paint and letting it dry overnight (see yesterdays posts for 'Dream Tree' and 'The Idea is This').

Andy's Harley, 7 x 10" cold press, 2008 (No. 3353)