“So bye bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
Them good ol’ boys was drinking whisky and rye, saying ‘this will be the day that I die...’ ”
Not so long ago, after a number of years I made contact with my old mate, Mark. I had done a drawing of Mark’s 1948 Chev Thriftmaster pick up truck a couple of years ago. In the mid '80s I'd taken some 35mm photos of ‘Baby Blue’ with the idea of doing an airbrushed illustration.
How times have changed! It wasn’t until 2008 that I got around to doing the illustration. Computers had replaced drawing boards and the global economy was going down the toilet. I found myself with time on my hands so I dragged out the old black and white 8x10" print I had made years earlier in the Auckland Star darkrooms and set to work.
This was the very first time I had attempted this kind of work on a computer. The idea was to create a rendered illustration of something unique – not just any 1948 Chev Thriftmaster but the particular truck that Mark had owned years earlier. I began by blocking in the blue painted surfaces and used Photoshop’s dodge and burn tools to render highlights and shadows. The Chev also bristled with chromework and working out how to render the polished hubcaps and model the fluted grille surfaces was a real challenge. The final touches were the small details, the 1940’s Chevrolet badging, the polished bolt caps on the 1/8" steel bumpers, the Chevrolet ‘bowtie’ emblems, double rear leaf springs and the 1980s vintage registration plates. IMHO this is what ‘makes' the illustration.’
If anybody wants a blow-by-blow tutorial drop a comment in the blog and I'll see what I can do...
About 'Baby Blue'...
Mark’s first car was a 1970’s Mk 3 ‘Coke Bottle’ Ford Cortina that his old man had picked out for him. It had been owned by a mechanic, had been well maintained, had a tidy body and was in good running order. At the business end it had a 1.6 litre four-cylinder crossflow engine lugging a fairly substantial mid-sized body and Mark hated it. He often said his old man had brought it to try and kill him. In fact he must have always been a Chev man because when he sold it a few years later this was the vehicle that replaced it!
‘Baby Blue’ was huge. Traditionally pre mid-1950’s Chevs had inline six-cylinder engines and ‘Baby Blue’ was no exception. The original sidevalve ‘Stovebolt Six’ had been replaced with a more modern ‘Blue Flame’ unit mated to the original three-speed gearbox. Acceleration was hardly neck-breaking but once wound up the truck would cruise comfortably at nearly 60 miles per hour (100kmh), it’s town-and-country rear tyres making a distinctive ‘frrrrrp’ sound as it whizzed along the roadway. Fuel consumption was the stuff of legend.
Mark was a collector. From his childhood he had made collections of all manner of articles. I met him during my third-form year at college and he invited me home after school shortly afterwards. He then showed me his collection of Malaysian ‘Kris’ daggers, a couple of machetes, some WWII bayonets and a ‘Kukri’ – the weapon of choice of the Ghurka Regiment. Subsequently he acquired a veteran Excelsior motorcycle, a King Nuetrodyne wireless radio set, a vintage Austin Seven and all manner of other stuff. If you needed to get hold of anything in the second hand/‘antique’ line or any old machinery Mark always ‘knew where one was’. With a 1/2 ton payload ‘Baby Blue’ was the ideal way to move his collections around. Most importantly it also meant that his Alsatian, Sheik, could ride on the huge tray, thus eliminating the problem of dog hair on any upholstery.
Like all older vehicles, ‘Baby Blue’ had it’s quirks. After years of wear the ignition switch could be turned on without the benefit of a key. It had a floor-mounted starter switch and no synchro on first gear. It had a vinyl-upholstered bench seat and absolutely no seatbelts. A collection of air-horns linked to an asthmatic compressor lurked behind the grille. The windscreen wipers were operated by the vacuum in the induction manifold, meaning that they would stop altogether when going uphill on full throttle and nearly fly off the screen going downhill on over-run. On one memorable trip from New Plymouth to Auckland the industrial-strength fanbelt broke and the engine overheated sending steam pouring up through the floorboards into the cab. Fortunately the Blue Flame suffered no permanent damage but a blown head gasket had to be replaced!
In fact that was our last trip in ‘Baby Blue’. Mark was taking her up to Auckland to sell her. He needed the money to contribute towards his share of the house that he and his girlfriend were buying.
I sent him a print of ‘Baby Blue’ for his birthday this year. Thanks for the memories...
“I was a lonely teenage bronc'n'buck with a pink carnation and a pick-up truck...”
(‘American Pie’, Don McLean)
