Renowned car illustrator, Stefan Marjoram is sketching the new Bentley Flying Spur S at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. He may be one of the most-loved automotive illustrators in the world but is diffident in a way that comes naturally to a certain sort of Englishman. “I wasn’t the best artist for most of my time at school – or even in my class really. That was my mate Andrew. So it’s a bit of a surprise to have had the career I’ve had …”
Bentley’s artist in residence for the weekend has been quietly drawing away across all corners of the Festival. He has been fascinated by the insights that spending time sketching a 100-year-old Bentley, immediately followed by a modern one, have given him. “When drawing modern and vintage Bentleys back-to-back, I’ve noticed that they all have the same presence, the same confidence, the same stance. Every Bentley has a certain quality that I suppose you could call sporting luxury.”
He jokes that he would have been more successful if he had stuck with a single style of drawing. “I’ve just found myself here without any sort of plan. I’m not very good at promoting myself. If I’d wanted to be really successful, I’d have stuck to one!”
At Goodwood, where he has been the artist in residence for Bentley over the weekend, he has chosen different styles for his modern and classic subjects. “It’s stronger, bolder, more graphical for the new cars. The Flying Spur is beautifully lit so I had the chance to go to town on the reflections in the style of the American car designers of the 1950s, who did some of the most amazing sketches on black Canson paper.
A more classical style for the older cars
“For the older cars, I’m using a more classical style – as if I’m drawing with red chalk on toned paper, with white chalk highlights. Starting on a toned background, you not only have the option to go darker for shadows, but also lighter for highlights.”
Marjoram is using an iPad to draw with at Goodwood because, as he says, “people seem to like seeing the drawing appear as they scroll through the animation. It’s nice that someone can see the work that has gone into it – how shaky the first steps are and hopefully how nicely it turns out!”
Once Marjoram has chosen his subject, “the first thing is careful measurement. It’s the old cliché of the artist holding their pencil up and squinting through one eye. But it’s important to get the right ratio of length to height so I can put down some key landmarks.
“Once I have that framework, I can relax a bit. Whatever I draw, as long as I stay within the marks, I can’t go too far wrong with. The marks aren’t particularly beautiful but the next part is to start drawing hopefully is. An arc, with a nice sweep. Another line, where I play with line weights – strong lines or light lines or graduating thick to thin. The more variation there is, the more interesting your illustration will be.
“I might focus on an area with more detail, more finesse while I leave other parts looser and less defined. It’s a bit like a photo: some details are in focus while others aren’t, leading the viewer to the focal point. Then I start adding in the rendering, the shading. They’re the trimmings – the highlights that make it pop.”
Influences from background at Aardman Animations
There is also a lot of liveliness, an almost-cartoonish quality, to some of his drawings of the vintage cars. The driver might be leaning over, almost as if a caricature. This is hardly surprising as Marjoram spent 10 years as a Creative Director at Aardman Animations, the four-time Academy Award-winning animation studio. His creative credits include Brian, the philosophising plankton in Creature Comforts and the talking ‘blobs’ that were used by the BBC3 television channel as their idents.
“I like to draw from life”, adds Marjoram. “And not only because drawing something from a photograph feels a bit like cheating. You can make better decisions – what to include and what to leave out. At Goodwood, it’s also been lovely to chat to people peeking over your shoulder. I’ve really liked that – it makes you feel much more a part of the event.”
Marjoram also works as a photographer but has found drawing at the Festival of Speed has allowed to be much more involved than when he’s “hiding behind a camera and dashing from place to place. It’s nice to stop and chat and do drawings for the kids. If I see that a youngster has an interest in drawing, I try to encourage them to stick at it. A lot of well-meaning adults try to convince children against doing this sort of job, saying that it’s not a stable career. When people want to enjoy themselves, they turn to the arts. In my case, I have just followed my love of drawing and seen where it took me.”
And this weekend, it has taken him to Goodwood. “I first came to the Festival 30 years ago. I’d never have dreamed that I’d one day be working here for Bentley.”
