A few weeks back I posted about my husband Kerry’s special birthday (80th). He received wine, chocolate and song at his party, but when he opened a box-shaped present later that evening he was amazed. For on the wrapping paper sat the most unique, but perfectly delightful gift. Some of you may have heard of, or even owned a tin SPACE PATROL vehicle with Da Da Sound. This model is circa 1970’s and from China, although there were earlier Japanese models through the 1950s and sixties. But neither Kerry and I had come across this toy in our childhood, or vroomed one around a room. I know I was was overjoyed to see the Space Patrol toy, brightly coloured with stars and flashes and a ‘robot’ driver. I immediately planned to sketch this fabulous machine, and finally found the time to spend on it yesterday.

I set up a table in the living room (home a little disrupted with double-glazing being fitted), and set out my trusty boxes of Faber Castell artist quality colour pencils. Usually I don’t touch graphite when drawing in colour, but found I needed a sharp light lead as a base for the more complex parts. As I’m right-handed I work left to right, keeping a paper towel under my wrist, to avoid smudging the guidelines. I decided to meld a cadmium and canary yellow together, to keep true to the toy’s colour.

For the red, I melded deep scarlet with a touch of dark orange to achieve the best affects. I always sharpen my colours as I progress, to keep the defining lines precise. When extending the colour, as on the body of the toy, I layer the deeper tones, by building on the light, ensuring I don’t leave a harsh edge where I need to add more tone. Here, I have built up the red in the fin, and begun to add some flash and star effects. By now I was wondering why I had set myself this task as a drawing like this takes time, yet, it would not have worked as a quick black and white sketch, as the colour of this subject was rather vivid, and it was this vivacity I wished to catch. Defining the black lines completed the drawing. And Voila it was done!

In fact this Space Patrol vehicle is not unlike its current owner, who was made a few years back, but remains forever young.