After School Art from the '50's

[7000in5th]

After school in the mid-50's, I would get home from school and rummage through my stack of car brochures, grab a shirt cardboard that came home from the laundry in Dad's shirts and do some cut-and-paste art. Since each creation took at least two brochures, I had to do some fast talking to get them in multiples. 

The simple one below has the hood ornament removed, is lowered and has a continental kit made from the side trim. Note that the rear bumper extension is a piece from the second brochure pasted over the original. I still have dozens of my teen art pieces from 65 or more years ago.

Did anyone else experiment with cut-and-paste art?

Edited October 19, 2020 by 7000in5th
Math

[DonW]

I never thought to try this but your results are excellent. Old skool Photoshop.

[7000in5th]

Thanks, Don. The Cadillac was one of the cleanest I did, the '53 Chevy below got a later model wraparound windshield and new rear window, along with a lowering job and Olds wheel cover. You can see a hint of an exhaust pipe through the rear bumper. I am not sure what prompted the red skirts! Using the One-Fifty Business Coupe as the base got me that custom 'de-chromed' look (and a cheap-looking  rubber stone guard on the rear fender).

The lowered Pontiac got the front bumper and front parking light corner trim, along with the taillight and wheel cover from the second Caddy brochure that provided the continental kit and extended bumper in the original post. A second Pontiac brochure provided the extended skirt trim.

Although I did do some perspective customs, I did a lot more of the direct side view mods. Finding brochures with those side views and matching scales (remember, we didn't have scanning way back then) was the big trick.

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

This is really cool. Excellent work, great idea.

I've never done anything like you have with published materials, but I have done something similar with photos I've taken of my own models and designs when I wasn't happy with the proportions, but just couldn't put my finger on what was wrong.

[Lunajammer]

These are brilliant. I love the resourcefulness. Pretty good for a youth.

[Russell C]

On 10/19/2020 at 3:27 PM, 7000in5th said:

Did anyone else experiment with cut-and-paste art?

If I did more, I don't remember, but here's one I saved from the mid 1980s B.C. (before computers) that was a "cut 'n cinch together & tape" which I intended as a silly form of wall art.

[7000in5th]

Clever, Russell!

I did a horizontal section job on the vert and a section and chop on the two-door:

[Oldcarfan27]

On 10/29/2020 at 11:00 PM, Russell C said:

I never knew there was a "Merury Cogar" Smart Car. ?

[Russell C]

8 minutes ago, Oldcarfan27 said:

I never knew there was a "Merury Cogar" Smart Car. ?

Oh, no! Never even thought of Smart Car, and now I can't unsee it!

[1930fordpickup]

David this is some very cool work you posted. 

[Kromolly]

David, thank you for sharing your artwork from your youth!  That is really cool stuff, and shows that you had a lot of talent as a young man (and you were resourceful).  What strikes me more than anything is the fact that you still have this stuff!  I wish I had been forward thinking and kept projects from my youth.  Very, very cool.

[Claude Thibodeau]

Hi David!

Very clever approach.

In the early 2000's, I grew nostalgic of an '85 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe that I owned back in the day. I started to look for a car to restore, but all I could find were "regular" aero birds of that vintage. Which got me to thing about "Pro-Touring" one: distinct full lenght frame, Mark VIII modular 24V engine, etc. Of course, that allowed playing with the notoriously short wheelbase of the Fox-based TBird. I resorted to your technique to figure out how it would look if I moved the front wheels 6 inches forward. I used hi-quality photocopies of Ford Brochures, and with some care, an Exacto and scotch tape, it "almost" looked photoshopped ! 

So, I can aprreciate your technique. Bravo! 

CT 

[7000in5th]

Thanks to all for your kind comments and contributions. The ones above were some of my favorites but I still enjoy looking at them all and communicating with teenage me from almost 70 years ago. Maybe some of you will enjoy these, too:

Above - Still using leftovers from the '54 (and a '52 snuck in, too) Ford brochure.

Above - And some mild custom work on a classier FoMoCo product that was difficult to improve on!

Below - Finally, the last of the scanned brochure 'scissors and glue' art, my perspective attempt resulting in a couple of strange color combo two-tone Rocket 88's.

I did DRAW some cars, also. If anyone is interested, I can post some of those.

Regards!!

Edited February 8, 2022 by 7000in5th

[misterNNL]

On 2/7/2022 at 1:33 PM, 7000in5th said:

Thanks to all for your kind comments and contributions. The ones above were some of my favorites but I still enjoy looking at them all and communicating with teenage me from almost 70 years ago. Maybe some of you will enjoy these, too:

Above - Still using leftovers from the '54 (and a '52 snuck in, too) Ford brochure.

Above - And some mild custom work on a classier FoMoCo product that was difficult to improve on!

Below - Finally, the last of the scanned brochure 'scissors and glue' art, my perspective attempt resulting in a couple of strange color combo two-tone Rocket 88's.

I did DRAW some cars, also. If anyone is interested, I can post some of those.

Regards!!

Thanks for posting these excellent images. Great stuff for sure. Very well done!

[7000in5th]

Here is one of the cars I actually drew back in the day, a sectioned 55 Chevy. I traced a brochure outline to get the proportions right then free-wheeled the custom work. 

[TNT]

Very cool. Great idea to come from a young brain. Hard to find that kind of out of the box thinking today.

[TarheelRick]

Definitely some mighty fine creative work.  I have a question of the blue w/yellow top '54. Does it have '55 headlights molded on it? That hood over the light and the peak down the side does not look like a 54.

[7000in5th]

On 6/12/2022 at 10:00 AM, TarheelRick said:

Definitely some mighty fine creative work.  I have a question of the blue w/yellow top '54. Does it have '55 headlights molded on it? That hood over the light and the peak down the side does not look like a 54.

Thank you, I am so glad I kept these! I dug around the internet and found the original brochure that I had used for the business coupe to hardtop conversion. The headlight shape is the way the 54 brochure showed it:

[TarheelRick]

Thanks for that information.  I always thought the headlight buckets were more like the ones on the red convertible.  Of course, I could have always gone down to my basement and looked at the three or four in my stash.

[W Humble]

Cool!  My way of ruining old car ads was to flame, pinstripe, and scallop them; even up through the mid-sixties!  Some okay, many should have been obliterated.  If I can figure out how to capture them and attach, I might post some of my 'fifties drawings... my curse was that I seldom used decent paper; mostly news-print and lined binder paper.  The former are obliterating themselves, and the latter look funny.  I'm sure when I saved them I wouldn't guess that they'd be interesting (or embarrassing) to even me 65-years later!  Wick