Christmas design , Santa Express

For this year I added some colour to the Santa Express I draw last year. The van is inspired upon a vw T3 van. 

It's available on Teepublic, Neatoshop and Spreadshirt.  And be sure to order on time .

Have a great weekend, stay healthy and until next time.  

Greetings Andres 

Color and drawing pages

As a parent with a passion for drawing you want teach your kid ( or kids ) how to draw. Well I have noticed a lot of online tutorials aren't really good, they skip steps and doesn't explain properly how a drawing is put together. And the good tutorials are aimed at adults and not appealing to kids. Then you have coloring pages that limits the creativity because all the lines are already in the drawing. So things can be better, and untill recently I didn't know a good way, but then I got chatting with a freelance illustrator on Instagram and she send a link to her website. And she made a color and drawing page a page with room for creativity a silhouet, some lines and the idea to draw a figure within this silhouet. A way so kids can have fun and learn how to draw. My approach is to explain how the drawing is put together with small drawings beside the main drawing, here you can see the basic shapes that become an drawing. 

Of course this method can be used on more complex drawings and tutorials for kids and adults who are more experienced, and in the future I'll probably also create a couple of pages for a higher skilled level. 

Here are some pages made by my daughter: 

You can see these color drawing pages in a seperated section on my blog.  

Have fun and feel free to leave a suggestion.

Untill next time,

Greetings Andres 

It's a Vantastic life

This design is inspired upon the VW T3 van, and I know for sure many people agree with me when I say life or summer is more fun when you drive a classic van 😁😉 .

I remember my old VW T3 van, I used it for almost everything. And in many ways they where better than the modern vans that VW produced after the T3 production ended. This van has a overall length and wheelbase similar to a regular car, so it's nimble and very easy to park. And because it's a van it's practical, with extra seats in the back you could go on a trip with 6 persons. And because almost the total length was all "interior" space you could sleep in the back what was ideal when I went to a minibike race ( yep minibike racing was my big hobby in the late 90's ). 

So in my opinion is the VW T3 camper van represent ultimate freedom and good life. And with that in mind I created this design, it's all about enjoying life , traveling and adventure. Hope you like it.

By the way this design comes in 3 variations and is only available on Teepublic and Neatoshop. 

As always if you have any questions or suggestions just leave a comment.

Until next time.

Greetings Andres. 

Trash Panda

Trash Pandas trashing a Fiat Panda mk1. I wanted to create a design with the classic Panda mk1 and came up with this idea. To make a more complete design I added a border around the drawing and used two edited vacation images for the background. The images are taken in a street in Italy and just some tree, adjusted brightness, contrast and colours until I just had black and white. 

The design looks best on light colours. And if you want there is also a version without text. 

Fiesta mk1

This design is inspired upon my first car the Ford Fiesta mk1. Available in 4 versions: 

  

  

And my first car:

A roller painted Fiesta mk1 from 1979 with a 1100 cc petrol engine , yes it was really that bright yellow no filter is used 😁. 

Have a great day and until next time.

Greetings Andres 

My love for ( drawing ) cars

As you might have noticed I like to draw cars, and early this year I thought maybe I should just start making shirt art with cars. For a very simple reason, I know cars and how to draw them for a very long time. So how did this all start you might wonder ?. Well I basically grew up in the 80's , road movies like Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run and TV series like Knight Rider, the A team where very popular. That plus a family with truck drivers and a car mechanic it's a wonder I didn't become a fanatic petrolhead 😁. Perhaps I'm a bit of strange car enthusiast 🤔. Let me explain, I look at cars from a technical and or design point of view. I think this keeps a sensible view on cars, I can go on and on about what cars I like but the best thing I can do is just name some cars I love.

Fast cars:

- Citröen SM just like the DS ahead of its time.

- Jaguar E type 

- Lancia stratos

Regular cars:

- Citröen traction avant ( as technician you've got to appreciate the history of this car brand )

- The classic small cars, when cars where so small it was almost a go kart. Like the first Morris mini cooper, fiat 500, BMW Isseta , Messerschmitt and Goggomobile. All examples where the manufacturers got really creative to make a small and lightweight car that makes a modern Smart look huge. 

- Classic cars that are converted to electric, although I'm not a big fan of electric battery powered cars ( explain this later ) I think it really makes sense because the cars are much lighter ( old vw van T1 , T2 is approximately 700kg lighter than the new T5 ). So less power and less battery capacity is needed to power an electric 2CV than some obese modern electric car. 

The daily driver:

If feul economy, reliability and room for family weren't issues I probably would drive some small cheap classic car for a couple of simple reasons. 

-Because of the lightweight and short wheelbase such cars or so much more fun to drive. 

-They are easy and fast to fix 

-Show your inner old Skool and have a car without airco , airbags, powersteering preferred in experienced condition in satin black or roller painted bright yellow. 

Good examples are the Ford Fiesta mk1, Renault 5 or Express ( first type )  , Fiat 126 etc. 

My first car, the Ford Fiesta mk1 

The design inspired upon my first car. 

My ( our ) current daily driver:

Well our family cruiser is a Peugeot Partner from 2004 basically a small commercial van with rear seats. And I must say I really like this car. It has a relatively short wheelbase and is a rather compact family car. But thanks to a higher roof and slightly higher seats has plenty of legroom , a lot of storing / loading capacity. And one of the best views on the road, really would recommend it to everyone above 1,90 meter. And like most French cars the car gives a good feedback and is agile around corners.  Finally thanks to a 2 liter turbo diesel it's goes a long distance with 1 liter fuel and isn't to slow. 

Our family cruiser a Peugeot Partner.

So what cars I don't like:

- The VW T5 transporter Euro 6 ( 2017 ) with Adblue, I drive this obese van for work and this van is the reason I'm no longer a VW fan. Lots of trouble with the Adblue , sudden loss of torque and stalling engine when driving from standing still, oil consumption and other shit I could write a separate post about. And like many modern cars there is no feedback when you're steering, only a blinking light when the traction control steps into action, a really boring van to drive. Only a half year before the lease ends 😁. 

- Overweight electric battery cars , you might think those cars are the answer and in a certain way they are.. But the battery still needs to be charged and very often it's done with a not environmental friendly way. Another problem is when we all switch to electric we would have a shortage in power. At the moment I think a electric feulcell car is the best alternative for the old petrol powered car. But until there are enough filling station to refeul your feulcell I'll keep my trustworthy diesel on the road 😉. 

-

So only car art in the future you might think ? Well I'll keep on drawing what I like and find a little balance between what I like and what you might want on a shirt. So if I have an idea that doesn't have a car there is a good chance that I will create this design 😁. 

-

I would like to end this post by saying thank you for taking the time to read this nonsense and feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. Stay healthy and until next time.

Greetings Andres