Machete Betties Roller Derby Art Car

The first and older of the two is my Santa Claus Car. Made back in 2000 with a Geo Metro using a giant Santa Hat made out of wire and foam by my wife at the time , Charlotte. Then covered with over 200 santa figures and Christmas ornaments and lights. The fact that over the years I began to look more and more like Santa himself made the car even more fun.

It is currently retired and I now mainly drive my Machete Bettie Command Car honoring a local Roller Derby team, the Machete Betties, of which I am the Team Chaplain. Painted by the girls, it is also a daily driver. Good luck with this project and Godz bless ya for doing it.

Rev Bryan

China?

 


Lace Fence is a product developed by the Dutch designer house Demakersvan. (And when one is not using it as a political statement, it is adorable)

WILLIAM A. SMITH

During World War II, the illustrator William A. Smith was sent by the OSS to China, where he spent time behind enemy lines working on the propaganda war. It was an eye-opening experience for a boy from Ohio, and he drew everything he saw.



He drew soldiers on a bumpy flight in the back of a C-47 aircraft. He drew Chinese children playing in the street. He drew vanquished japanese prisoners in camps. You can see his thirst for knowledge in these wonderful drawings.

I find it uplifting that, in the midst of war, an artist retained such curiosity about the world around him and such sensitivity for his subjects. There is a lot of humanity in these drawings.

It is especially interesting to contrast Smith's personal drawings with the propaganda drawings he was doing at the same time (caution: some of these are a little raw).









Smith's personal drawings were clearly an educational process. He learned a lot from keeping his eyes open. On the other hand, his propaganda drawings demonstrate none of the same effort. Great art enriches us by exposing us to the complexity and nuance of life, but in times of war complexity and nuance can be a hindrance.

These twin sets of drawings are a good example of why William Butler Yeats said, "We make rhetoric out of arguments with others but we make poetry out of our arguments with ourselves."

17 Reasons To Drive A Wooden Art Car

I got this wooden VW art suggestion from Kelly Lyles the other day so I had to post this. I got carried away and spent a couple of hours looking for more of these wooden wonders. I am sure there are benefits to owning a wooden art car so here we go, my top seventeen reasons to drive a wooden art car.

1) Babe Magnet

2) Great View


3) It floats


4) It floats and its faster

Livio De Marchi from Venice, Italy created these three and two of them float, I wonder why?

5) Giant Door Wedge

Splinter

6) Smaller Door Wedge

Little Splinter
created artist Isaac Cohen who is a regular at the Houston Art Car Parade.

7) Classy Dinner Table

The car is built from scratch from Friend Wood entitled the Tryane II, took almost 2000 hours to create. It weighs in at about 900 pounds & is capable of 100mph. This is much better than any log ride out there! I love it.It took furniture maker Friend Wood, 46 over 2 000 hours to build his three-wheel, tear-drop shaped car. Named 'Tryane II', it was built around a basic mould using a boat-building technique known as 'cold moulding'. Mr Wood (yes, that's his name) then built up layers of African mahogany. The two-seater is an adaption of the classic four-wheeled 1969 Citroen Diane and uses the chassis and 602cc engine from a Citroen 2CV. It weights 900 lbs, is 13 feet 7 inches long, 5 feet four inches wide, and four feet four inches tall. With a top speed of approximately l00 mph, it has a fuel consumption of up to 70 mpg.


8) Zamboni on wheels

This wood car was created as a promotional vehicle made by a furniture company in Japan with a max speed of 80km/h.

9) Better Snow Traction

This Opel car which has been stripped of all the metal on the chassis and been replaced with wooden planks.

10) Stealth WWI Machine


11) Urban Safari Trips


12) Get Away Car


13) Better parallel parking?


14) Makes the rims look really nice


15) Wild Life Preserve


16) Pick up time machine?


17) If life gives you wood, make an underpowered wooden death trap

Trail in Woods

Trail in the woods
Private collection of Mitch Singer

6" x 8", oil on canvas panel

Drawings

I try to draw everyday, even if just for a few minutes. Creatively, I want to walk that tight rope between representation and abstraction. I am particularly attracted to artist's work with adventurous use of color or abstraction of shape, such as Bay Area artists Terry St. John and Judy Molyneux's plein aire work.

Left: Woman Jumping- graphite, charcoal, and watercolor.
Right: Woman and Shadow- graphite, charcoal, and blending stump.

Prius Art Car For Sale - For the birds

This 2006 Prius called "For the Birds" is now owned by the Shalom Compost of Santa Cruz and is for sale. It was painted by Artist Kelly Lyles for Marilyn Dreampeace who recently past away. These beauties are hard to get now days with gas prices being what they are and the art work on it is simply amazing. It has 53k miles with California HOV stickers and is going for $25,000, if you are interested please contact Compost@aol.com



Kelly Lyes working on the car