This week marks the first anniversary of Motorsport In Print!

Just a year ago, I began turning what was initially a hobby into a business.

For many years I have painted. Mainly abstract artwork full of colour and texture. These paintings were sold all over the world. I had never thought to combine my love of art and motorsport until one day in March last year I created some digital artwork of a Caterham 7 as a gift.

The feedback for the unique style of digital prints was superb to the point where I thought it would be a good idea to see if the style would work with F1 cars, especially the classics. I searched through the net and dug out some great photos of Stirling Moss, Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart and set about creating some artwork. I had a superb reaction from friends, family and, possibly more importantly, people I didn’t know.

The next steps were tough. I had to source images that I could use commercially as artwork. I contacted a lot of photographers, agencies and archives and after months of trying, I had someone that would allow me to use their images. I then set about creating my first prints.

Some weeks later, I had a total of 20 prints finished, invested in the equipment to produce them, sourced the right papers, inks and mounts and had a website ready. It was time to press the ‘go’ button. That was a year ago this week.

Over the coming weeks and months, I kept adding in new artwork. Mainly this was based on F1.

A few months in, I was already attracting a lot of attention from some racing drivers, as well as well known TV presenters. I had contacted a few for feedback and they appeared to really like it! Even Tiff Needell has a print of his short career in F1. 

I like to help charities whenever I can and in November 2009 I had contacted Wings for Life and offered them some original prints of Mark Webber, David Coulthard and Sebastian Vettel to auction off to raise money for their charity. The three prints raised over €1,000! By the end of 2009, I was contacted by one of the Red Bull Air Race teams to complete some artwork for them to use as corporate gifts after they had seen my special prints for Wings for Life. At the end of January, the artwork was complete and was making its way to Germany to Air Race pilot, Matthias Dolderer. 

The first 6 months of operating Motorsport In Print as a part time business had made me realise that being a specialist motorsport artist was what I really wanted to be. I had found that I was spending more time on being an artist and less time on my normal day job. In December 2009, I took the decision to give up my other business and concentrate on Motorsport In Print full time. Looking back now, I realise how unhappy I was in my previous job. It was stressful, I was unappreciated and, although not the be-all and end-all, I was underpaid.

Earlier this year I started to expand the ranges on my website to include more from the BTCC. I had been following the BTCC for many years, since the days of Nigel Mansell. I think it was Nigel Mansell competing in the BTCC that initially made me start watching it, being a huge F1 fan.

For the past few months, the BTCC has been a major focus for my business and artwork. My first show of the 2010 season was the Rockingham round of the BTCC. I was exhibiting and selling my artwork inside the Welcome Center. I met some great people on those two days and the feedback was superb. 

As I was originally a painter and not a digital artist, the next logical step for me was to start to introduce original paintings. From the end of April, I started work on perfecting my style for these paintings, a style which echoes my original abstract paintings of the past 8 years. Early on I was creating small paintings in A3. As I increased the canvas size, the better they became. I am a believer that artwork doesn’t need to accurately reflect a photograph or the subject and instead should be creative and expressive. I didn’t want to create paintings that were an exact copy of a photo and instead wanted something that was obviously ‘me’ – my own recognisable style.

I was fortunate to meet Matt Hamilton and his family at Rockingham. After the event, I was asked to create a design for some new t-shirts and caps which eventually led on to asking if the team would allow me to come along to the Oulton Park round of the BTCC and paint Matts car and help raise money for charity too. They kindly let me hijack their hospitality tent and let me chuck some paint about! This was a great experience for me and was a very enjoyable weekend. Hard work, but enjoyable. My artwork attracted the attention of a lot of passers by, drivers and teams and the feedback was great. 

Two weeks later was the Croft round of the BTCC and I had offers from two teams to come along and paint for them. I already had someone else lined up that I had contacted just a couple of days after Oulton Park. That was Team AON.

Team AON accepted with enthusiasm. So, at Croft, I was painting again on the Saturday and Sunday inside the Team AON hospitality tent. I met so many brilliant people that showed genuine interest in my paintings and the unusual techniques I use. It was a superb experience for me to work with one of the front running teams. It was also great to talk to Tom Onslow-Cole and Tom Chilton and for them to see my ‘work in progress’ and the finished paintings at the end of the weekend. They seemed to like the work too!

I am so appreciative of TH Motorsport and Team AON for allowing me to paint pictures of their cars. Each event gets slightly better as I learn new things.

I hope to continue to work with the BTCC teams over the coming months and years. The BTCC is a superb racing series that doesn’t get anything like enough coverage it deserves…. but that’s another story!

Between Rockingham and Oulton Park, I had my artwork featured on another website, an exclusive print of the legend Stirling Moss. The www.stirlingmoss.com website now features two prints by yours truly, something which I am extremely proud of!

So whats next this year?

I hope to paint with some more teams in the BTCC and would love to go to Silverstone to paint for one of the F1 teams but I think that may need to wait a year or two. I will be exhibiting my prints, drawings as well as creating some paintings at Silverstone (BTCC) and hopefully Donington (should the event take place). I hope to attend Knockhill with one of the teams too.

I will also be attending other events this year. You can view these events on my Events page of the website.

Although in the past couple of months my main focus has been paintings, I will still be creating my digital prints and also offering original paintings and prints of paintings. 

Well, thats it. Thats what has happened in a year. Its been very busy looking back but I hope the future will be even busier and even more exciting!

Thanks for reading!
Luke

Latest painting of Tom Onslow-Cole racing for Team AON. Painting also available as a print. View more here: http://www.motorsportinprint.com/31/224/2738/Tom_Onslow-Cole_-_Team_AON_-_2010

Latest painting is of Paul O’Neill racing in the Honda Integra in the 2010 BTCC season. Painted in acrylics on canvas and is available as an original painting or limited edition print (in two sizes).

View the painting/order a print here: http://www.motorsportinprint.com/31/224/2737/Paul_ONeill_-_Sunshine.co.uk_-_2010

I spent my weekend at Oulton Park painting. Yep, I sacrificed watching (some) of the racing and instead was raising money for Help for Heroes.

Over the two days I painted two canvases of Matt Hamilton’s Honda Civic at the end of the TH Motorsport hospitality tent.

Saturday was hot. I remembered to put on my factor 50 sun cream before leaving in the morning and I am glad I did! The lobster look isn’t a great one!

The first painting took around 4 hours to complete and measured 30 x 20 inches. It was painted on box canvas which I had pre-prepared with the sketch outline prior to the event.

The Sunday painting took around 4 or 5 hours to complete and brought quite a bit of attention. It measured 40 x 30 inches and again was pre-sketched before the event. Sunday was a very busy day. With racing not due to start until 12:15 it made the paddock area very busy.

The whole point of the painting was to raise money for Help for Heroes. Working on ‘live’ paintings is a real attention grabber and helped draw people in so we could get them to part with their cash!

Along with the paintings, I brought along some small prints of Matt Hamilton that we were selling for a just £10. These were very popular! Matt signed all of the prints and they were quickly snapped up. Matt must be a very popular boy!

The good news is is the paintings and prints raised £185 for the charity and along with the grid walk donations, the weekend total for the team was a superb £387.94. I, along with TH Motorsport and Matt Hamilton, would like to extend my thanks to everyone that donated or purchased a picture. 

‘What a great effort’ said Matt. ‘I am thrilled that we managed to raise so much money, and I am particularly grateful to Luke for all of the hard work that he put into the weekend. It’s so good that people like Luke are prepared to go the extra mile to help with the rehabilitation of our wounded soldiers. I was also bowled over by the generosity of the fans at the autograph session…..thanks so much everyone.’

If you didn’t manage to grab a mini print at Oulton Park, don’t panic! There are a few left! You can buy one at the next round of the BTCC!

www.matthamiltonracing.com
www.helpforheroes.org.uk