Motorbike Art

A drawing of a machine nobody owns is decoration, and there is nothing wrong with decoration. It fills a wall, it sets a tone, and it asks nothing of the person looking at it. A drawing of a specific bike does something else. It carries the mark on the tank, the exhaust that got fitted one winter, and the fact that somebody chose all of it. That is a portrait, and it is the reason people keep them for decades.

Three ways to draw one machine

The same bike reads completely differently across the three house style families, and the difference isn't decorative. An oil-painting treatment gives it depth and garage light, the way a portrait of a person would, and it flatters curves and paintwork. The blueprint studies turn it into an annotated engineering drawing, which suits the rider who is happiest with the bike in pieces on a bench. The poster styles flatten it into bold graphic colour, which reads across a room and suits a modern wall. Match the treatment to the rider and the choice stops being a guess.

If the bike isn't yours to photograph

Then buy by the riding instead. Mile-eaters and tourers get the road posters: Applecross, the NC500, Snake Pass. The cafe crowd get the cafe racer ink series, one of which is a crouched racer drawn in a single unbroken line. Track-day regulars get the race-day posters. Every piece is original artwork drawn in-house, and none of it carries a rider likeness, a team badge or a marque logo, which is a deliberate choice rather than a shortage of talent.

Getting your own bike drawn

Photograph it first, and the two-minute photo guide is worth reading before you do, because the angle decides more than the camera. Then upload it to the Paint Shop, pick a style, and look at the free watermarked preview before deciding anything. If you'd rather skip the transformation entirely, your photograph printed as it is is the other route.