Day Two:
Day two of my 90 day challenge. Today I set myself the assignment of drawing my least favorite subject matter. I’ve never much liked drawing cars, despite my early influences, reading ‘car-toon’ hot rot magazines that my Uncle Ken had piled up in his bedroom at my Grandparents house.
I’ve owned three VW beetles at one point or another in my life. The first one was a rust orange beater that I had for less than a year, and at one point actually stuck my foot through the rusty floorboards. The second one was like the one pictured, a yellow ’74, in fairly decent cosmetic shape, but seemed to constantly need minor engine repairs, and had a problem with the heat ducts so that you would boil your lower legs in the summer if you had to drive it any long distance. We currently have a ‘new beetle’ that we are quite happy with (and I can actually fit my upright bass and amp into for gigs, as long as I don’t need to take any other passengers).
My first car was a ’75 Chevy Vega, a hand-me-down from my parents, which I used for basic transportation in the early 80’s, until it practically rusted away. I remember when it rained, the windshield would leak, and the water would collect in the foam seats, so that when you got into the car, not only did you get a wonderful cooked mildew smell, but you’d also get a wet ass when you sat down.
Then during the eighties and early nineties, we had a series of dull and (mostly) reliable Ford Escorts, two hatchback models, and a station wagon once we started down the ‘family’ path. Several memorable driving vacations taken in these vehicles.
Day Three:
A quick one today, as I’ll soon be heading downtown for the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts (I usually like to hang around downtown for most of the weekend, sampling the food from the vendors and catching local music acts), and my country group The Jukejoint Handmedowns is performing on one of the stages this evening at 8pm (and I’ll also be playing in several other ‘pick up’ groups over the course of the weekend).
Continuing with my ‘car theme’:
Around the mid 90s, we were starting to do a bit more backbacking and tent camping, so we thought we might need a four wheel drive vehicle to better navigate some of the two track roads that we kept finding ourselves driving down on our treks in our old Escort wagon (and nearly getting stuck on a couple occasions). We had a brief two or three month affair with a used Isuzu Trooper that conked out on us, and forced us to buy a replacement vehicle, for which we chose a new ’95 Jeep Cherokee. This car holds the record for the longest we’ve ever had a particular vehicle, and we only just sold it last year.
Day Four:
Gonna have to be another quick one this morning, I’ve got another busy day scheduled with the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts. Playing in an impromptu pick up group at 12:30, and then playing some jazz standards with my son at the Art museum at 3pm. The Jukejoint Handmedowns set was a lot of fun yesterday evening, a big enthusiastic crowd, and the combo was firing on all cylinders (you can photos at our Facebook page).
Anyhow, todays ‘drawing of the day’ continues with the ‘car theme’ I started a few days ago. In 2001 we bought a PT Cruiser (at the time thought it was one of the coolest looking cars we’d seen in a long time, which was basically the only criteria we used). It ended up being pretty reliable transportation for a decade or more (still have it), and is useful for carrying around music gear.
