Fast cars and watercolours

I completed this line drawing this weekend and hope to develop it further in watercolour. Watercolour is a medium that I do work in from time to time and really need more practice with. Years ago when I worked with Tom Greenshields, we would go out in his car and do a little watercolour painting of a variety of scenes. He competently, me, hit and miss. He had an E-type Jaguar which everyone used to envy. Tom's reason for keeping it was that it had a 'lovely little shelf that folds down on the dash' that he could balance his water bottle on when painting from inside the car on damp or cold days.

I was never a car snob, but enjoyed good looking cars, the Jaguar being no exception. I owned several sports cars myself, the first being an MGB convertible here in Newfoundland. It was a perfect little two seater that worked like a charm most of the time. Of course it developed some charms of its own with age. Like the fact that the headlights would come on when you closed the door. I cut my teeth on mechanics with that car too, mastering all sorts of things before my ability dwindled and I let the professionals take over.

In the UK, I had my second MBG, the GT model and that car survived kids and dogs stuffed into the tiny seat behind the front seats and I loved the car. The photo shows my youngest daughter with the car outside my house in England.

That car provided my first excursion into crime.

I stole it.

Well, it was mine at the time, but a soon to be ex husband decided to borrow it and never return it, so in the predawn one morning I 'recovered' it with the help of a tow truck, had all the locks changed on the doors and life went on beautifully with my car. When I finally had to sell it to accomodate growing children and life, even the license plates were profitable. They had a certain letter/number sequence that was wanted by people and a company in London bought the plates from me for 450 pounds sterling. I believe the landlord of a pub in Sussex bought them.

I still rather wish I had that car again...