by Richard Bartholomew –

Wallace Wyss, frequent My Car Quest contributor, is previewing some new art he plans to have at his Art & Books booth at Concorso Italiano in Monterey August 19, 2017. He announced he is expanding his styles.

VERTICAL “EVENT” POSTERS

“When I saw one of the posters for the Scott Eastwood movie, a poster that was horizontal, it reminded me that all movie posters have heretofore been vertical so I decided to do one that’s vertical, the event in this case is just Monterey 2017 in general.

The car is a Ferrari 250LM. I wasn’t confident drawing in letters for a license plate so I left the license plate blank.”

PREWAR ART DECO STREAMLINE MODERNE

“It didn’t really register in my mind how much art deco cars are finally being recognized. You might say they are having a long range effect—there’s even customizers building them now, so I decided to pick a few of them, Bugattis, Delahayes and such, and do some portraits, especially against European backgrounds, like Paris, the Cote d’Azur or Italy.”

SKETCHPAD BACKGROUNDS

“I often admired artists who bring more focus on the car by only sketching in the important bits, say the car and a major building in the background, but then the background falls off to nothing outside of that. My idol in this respect is Ken Dallison, of Canada, but I’m a long way from matching him – he can draw people – I can’t.”

MONOCHROMATIC

“I have to admit that, as far as being a fan of black and white, since I went digital, I’ve lost interest in even looking at black and white photos, except in old films like Touch of Evil. But monochromatic–which I define as a lot of related colors–such as everything in this Cobra painting being a variant of burnt sienna, still intrigue me but it takes twice as long to paint it as it would if I used a full palette of colors.”

ENGINE PORTRAITS

“I only have done two so far, a Ferrari 250GTO Columbo single cam per bank V12 and a Cobra 289 Comp car with Webers but I hope to find in my photo collection a Porsche Carrera four cam because I love the aerodynamics of the fan shroud.”

FLAT COLOR

“I paint in oils but I am getting closer to figuring out how to do flat color. I am inspired in this regard by Razzia’s posters for the Bagatelle concours in Paris.”

RECORDING-THE-EVENT ART

“I will shoot about 500 pictures at Monterey, and maybe only make ten paintings,” says Wyss.

“This multiple Cobra work came from visiting the Cobra pits at Laguna Seca. Bondurant autographed it. I will show a scene if I feel my reference shot conveys enough of the ambiance of the event to make you feel like you’re there. The best potential for an exciting shot during Car Week is where the collector cars are in Carmel, but so far the crowd is so thick there, I’ve been unable to get a clear enough shot to give me something to work with.”

Wyss says those interested in his work can write for a list of prints that he will plans to have available by contacting him at Photojournalistpro2@gmail.com

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

THE AUTHOR: Richard Bartholomew is a fine artist in Riverside,CA.