1955 Pontiac Wagon Drawing

Last week, I drew a 1949 Chevy with some Atomic age motifs as the first in a series celebrating a variety of my favorite design themes. This week, I chose to make a 1955 Pontiac Wagon Drawing celebrating the classic family vacation, but using a vintage feel.

This drawing follows the same styling as the ’49 Chevy – a black and white car featured in front of colored design elements, all on gray paper. I chose a ’55 Pontiac Chieftain Safari as the car – There’s just something inexplicable about wagons that I love – and the ’55 Chieftain has a cool mouth. Lots of detail.

First, I roughed out the car in pencil on toned gray paper. I wanted to incorporate some vintage vacation design elements, specifically nodding to my state of Michigan. Vintage Michigan vacation posters reference “Water Wonderland,” and “Up North,” and I wanted to tip my hat to those. Additionally, I added a Midcentury road sign highlighting some of the great things Northern Michigan has to offer.

Next, I lined the 1955 Pontiac Wagon Drawing with Micron 03 and 05. I added some vintagy diamonds toward the rear of the car.

I used Micron pens and Sharpie markers to fill in the shadows on the car. This part took a couple hours alone, especially as I worked through the grille area.

Finally, I used a variety of pastel Copic markers to color in the sign, lettering, and diamonds. I used Posca white to fill in the shiny reflective parts of the car, and the outline that pops it off the page.

This was a fun project, and I’m excited to start on the next car in this series!