During the car’s construction, I’d regularly zoom out and paint a little on the background. There must be twenty different colors sprayed with several differently shaped brushes. This screen snap (Below) was taken in Illustrator where I usually set type. Visible in it are the refined shadow and a mostly finished background. The original Cadillac had ELDORADO in raised chromed letters on the side fenders, so while I was setting the type to spell Eldorado, the E and the L made me think about Elroy’s name…

I got E L R O Y D O R A D O – A title presented itself.

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Staying with the chromed letters idea, I painted one layer of type to look like chrome. Duplicated it, dragged the layer down one, clicked on “Preserve Transparency”, filled with black, unchecked Preserve Transparency, Menu-Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur, set slider to 5 or so (experiment), adjust the Layer opacity slider to 44 and I get a soft drop-shadow. I also adjusted its width to be a pinch narrower; Menu-Edit/Transform/Numeric and set the width percentage to 99.5. The soft foggy glow is done by duplicating the chromed type (make sure the Preserve Transparency box is unchecked); then Menu-Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur, set the slider to 20 (experiment); then adjusted the Layer opacity to around 50.

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Click for larger view

E L R O Y D O R A D O turned into a rather cool painting. I was able to combine a variety of elements; A black and white photo, the Jetsons flying car, Keith Weesner’s earthy color palettes from his flying car paintings, a gadget from a real airplane and a lot of p-shop techniques. That concludes this demonstration, although, I will continue refining the painting within Motorburg’s “Tips Techniques and Tutorials” section. Thanks for joining me, I hope it gives you plenty of ideas.

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About the Artist:

Keith Towler started drawing early in life and subsequently found that he could work out invention-ideas too. He was fascinated with cars, especially the more radical Hot Wheels®. He built the craziest models available and won many a contest, all the while, still drawing and painting.

Because of his model car craftsmanship and school wood-shop – he was hired at sixteen to build custom van interiors for customers and shows. Following that “gig”, he went to work at a sign shop to learn hand lettering and pinstriping. His skills and the shop’s tools had him building shopping-mall kiosks, acrylic office signage and trade show displays. On weekends, Keith worked on his own custom cars including a Falcon with suicide doors and an adjustable suspension low-rider Cadillac (a first in the Atlanta area). During this period he attended schools to learn mechanical drafting, air-brush technique and color theory.

In 1986, while driving his lowered ‘69 Coupe deVille on the interstate, a speeding semi crossed the median divider and hit him head on, shredding the car and crushing him. Paralyzed, it took Keith several years of therapy and perseverance to assemble a portfolio, with which he was accepted into an Atlanta advertising school. He graduated with honors while earning several industry magazine accolades. Armed with a computer and his own mouse invention, Keith was once again ready to make his mark with art. During school Keith adopted the nickname “RunawayChair” and has been a freelance illustrator since 1995. Working with architects, he created dozens of golf course design renderings, as well as working on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie. That work stopped abruptly with the economy in 2007, so he decided to return to his real favorite art – that of the automobile.

Although liking everything automotive, Keith readily admits he has a preference for “low-brow” art and the artists that draw irreverent, freaked-out cars. With this focus, he is combining everything he knows, including quite a bit of “titillating” subject matter, to make himself known.

We at Motorburg admire his creative drive and unique approach to art.  You can contact and see more of Keith’s art and ideas on the Motorburg Forum as well as interact with “the man” himself on the ‘Burg’s own Social Network.  Look out people, here comes a runaway chair!

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