Neale 00:14
I’m here with contemporary artist Ian Cook. Ian I’ll probably let you introduce yourself because you’re not an artist that works with paint brushes, you’re well you work with paint not brushes, you combine your passions, tell us what that is.
Ian 00:28
So yes, my name is Ian Cook from Pop Bang Colour. I’m an artist, but not kind of your normal artist. So one of the processes that I do is I paint solely with radio control cars, tyres, and wheels. So that’s one of the processes that I do. And then I also create continuous car drawings, which is kind of born out of lockdown and the latter half, more recent half of my career, where I draw as well. So I paint and I draw, generally all automotive.
Neale 00:54
But, I mean, you’re selling yourself short a little bit. I mean, you say you paint and you draw. You’ve created some wonderful and huge extravagant. We were talking before about your work at BMW. You’re a Guinness World Record holder, responsible for Lewis Hamilton’s Brazilian GP win.
Ian 01:10
Well, I’d like to say I was. But no, there was, believe me, there was a very nervous PR company behind that whole project.
Neale 01:22
So give us the story. It was a 2008 and a pretty big deal.
Ian 01:26
I mean, as a career project starting, yeah, kind of, for me, yeah, so 2007, so 2006-2007, I started the process of working out how to paint with a radio control car. How’d you do that? Do you put the paint onto the wheels? Do you pour the paint on? Do you let the, how do you apply, mix, move the paint? I worked out that you put the paint on the canvas, then the car wheels spread the paint around the canvas, creating the artwork. So that’s how it, yeah, that’s how it started. And then I was at Goodwood in 2008, which I had no idea how big the event was. I kind of, at that point, I was still kind of contacting the events agencies and events companies and going, hi, I’m Ian. And then I had that 30 second elevated picture of like, duh, duh, duh, this is what I did. So I was at Goodwood and I was painting a portrait of Louis, a small portrait of Louis Hamilton there.
Neale 02:25
Not a 6-story one, just a small one.
Ian 02:27
When I say a small one, it was still two and a half meters by a meter and a half. It was still-
Neale 02:30
You can’t go too small with an RC car.
Ian 02:32
It wasn’t like small in my head, compared to the big one, it was small. So the Louis Hamilton portrait, a Mike Orthon car. It was Louis on the start line and something else. Oh, it was Lord March in a Jaguar D-type. So I painted these artworks and that year they also had the drags to fire up, which meant, you know, at that point also, 2008, Goodwood wasn’t the massive event it is now. It’s not the global event. It was a massive event, it’s now a global event.
Neale 03:06
Yeah, I mean, it’s featured on Gran Turismo and various-
Ian 03:08
Oh yeah, it’s just huge, huge, huge, huge thing now. It is the motoring event that all the brands want to be at and want to be part of and whatever.
Ian 03:20
So I painted these artworks and so, yeah, I think Louis had painted on the Saturday Sunday. So that year, dragsters, they were firing up. That meant that people poured over to one side of the event that they wouldn’t necessarily do normally. And so, and when they walked back from the dragsters, they walked into my marquee. So I had a lot of people-
Neale 03:45
Captured-
Ian 03:45
Yeah, and all these people twice a day who’d just walk into my marquee because I was like the kind of closest thing nearest them.
Neale 03:51
You were the museum gift shop, basically, the same way-
Ian 03:53
Basically, so yeah, yeah, yeah, and the accidental purchase. So, yeah, so, and it turns out that a person who, people who came in were M+C Saatchi the advertising agency. Obviously, were very well known, the Saatchi name, I know from being an artist and growing up with the, you know, the kind of the Y. Bass era and Charles Saatchi and whatever. So M+C Saatchi, so Morris and Charles Saatchi, are the two Saatchi, which is an advertising agency.
Ian 04:23
At this point, I had no idea what a corporate Reebok- yeah, a corporate gig or would be. So I- they they messaged me going, right, how how big can you paint?
Neale 04:26
How big can you go?
Ian 04:26
How big you go you? Yeah, these two and a half meters is nice but how big can you go? And I was just like how big how big do you want me to to paint it? Like you know you tell me-
Neale 04:26
By naivety of youth-
Ian 04:26
Oh, it was honestly now I’d be like hmm well yeah-
Neale 04:26
I’ll work out ???
Ian 04:26
Exactly!
Neale 04:26
How much acrylic paint do I need to acquire?
Ian 04:26
Uh yeah so um so I just uh I ended up we ended up going down to London down to their offices in um which is just it was literally just behind Oxford Circus there’s a little park and there’s this very nice office that hasn’t got a name but is quite clearly is a nice office. Um and then we had a chat blah blah, turns out they wanted me to paint this this giant portrait of of him to celebrate him becoming a global ambassador for Reebok as a off-track athlete, so hence why he wasn’t in his in his racing attire and it wasn’t associated to what was then McLaren. So it was more like-
Neale 04:26
This is the personality rather than the brand of-
Ian 04:26
Yeah yeah so um and it yeah, classically kind of, I went down and we had the chat and then when we came to how big can it get um, 12 was 12 was always for some reason been our lucky number, so I just went you know what we paced out in the offices and it was like 12 meters by 8 meters. And I was like, seems all right-
Ian 04:26
Yeah it’s fine it’s fine and then when we went back home and dad went: ‘How big did you tell them you’re going to…?’ And I went: ’12, 12 by 8, yeah, and he goes: ‘That’s that’s 36 feet, that’s that’s uh that’s like three double decker buses.
Ian 04:26
Yeah, he thought about that he was like: ‘Yeah, it’d be fine, wouldn’t it?’
Neale 04:26
Like how many tubs of paint you went through?
Ian 04:26
It was a huge like it was a lot. And and the thing is at that time yeah you also I couldn’t tell people what I was doing and when I was doing it, who I was doing it for. It was all is all kept very much like, so I was trying to get a hold kind of get hold of people who might have done corporate work like it, but obviously I’m painting with a radio control car.
Neale 04:26
It’s it’s new ground.
Ian 04:26
So I was like all all of this information again I’m like it’s not really going to help because I’m doing something which is so not in the same yeah it’s okay I’m using paint on a canvas that’s about it. Um and then they came back to me and said like we’ve got a week so in a week in the central London shop unit um and they decked it out like a like a studio kind of kind of you know similarly kind of like lights and kind yeah-
Neale 04:26
So it looked the part.
Ian 04:26
It looked cool it looked cool. And I just just kind of got on with it.
Neale 04:26
Yeah. How long did it take?
Ian 04:26
A week, yeah, I had a week, a full week but like properly-
Neale 04:26
Well it’s a 36 foot- it’s a big-
Ian 04:26
Yeah and it was like a proper like long week it was like long hours. I’d also managed to put a craft knife in my leg the week before as well, so that was-
Neale 04:26
That was going to hinder progress!
Ian 04:26
Yeah he did yeah it was it was yeah it was um somewhat of a that was when the project manager, Roman, she was like: ‘You’re not in it?’ And I went: ‘Yeah yeah I’m in I’m in the A&E yeah right now.’ ‘What have you done?’ ‘Rushed a craft knife in my leg.’
Neale 04:26
‘Is this going to affect the progress of this big massive thing that we’ve just given you?
Ian 04:26
Yeah I was like it was exactly like that, and she was like: ‘And you’re fine, aren’t you?’ I was like: ‘Yeah, I think so, we’ll crack on.’
Ian 07:53
So I think sometimes you’ve got to have an element of that still.
Neale 07:57
You’ve got to be a bit naive, you’ve got to be young, you’ve got to be hungry for it.
Ian 08:00
I’m so glad I did it when I was 23. I think now, through just experience and I’d be a bit more grumpy.
Neale 08:10
Yeah, I would have made a special of the craft, mate.
Ian 08:12
Yeah, I’d be a bit like, oh no. But no, not that I am grumpy, because I’m very fortunate to be in the position of what I do.
Neale 08:20
Yeah, well, also your artwork is very, I’ve always thought it was like really positive. You’re a very bright personality yourself, but I mean if you look –
Ian 08:27
I’m dull, I’m very dull, I’m blending, nobody ever knows I’ve arrived. And I’m very- I fly to the-
Neale 08:35
Demure-
Ian 08:36
Yeah, I fly under the radar, yeah.
Neale 08:38
But it’s it’s I mean, your artwork is kinetic, I think, by the nature that you do with the tyres and stuff, it’s very sort of like, I wanted to say splashed on, but it’s very alive. It’s very colourful.
Ian 08:49
Splishy splashy- It’s actually like it’s outside the lines.
Neale 08:50
So you were using remote control cars, you used tyres as well. Where did the initial inspiration from using the RC remote control car?
Ian 08:50
I was given I was given a radio control car as a Birth- as a Christmas present. And I was told don’t take it down to the studio and don’t get paint on it.
Neale 08:50
So you did exactly the opposite.
Ian 08:50
I listened to a bit of that conversation-, but I was always into cars anyway. Cars and art…
Neale 08:50
Did cars come back from a childhood thing?
Ian 08:50
Yeah, I just wanted to be a car designer when I was a kid. And then I did a week’s work experience with my uncle, who was a car designer. And I found it boring.
Neale 08:50
Right, you don’t have to apologize to me, I’m not a car designer.
Ian 08:50
No, but it’s just like, you kind of, I don’t know, it was a little bit like don’t meet your heroes. I kind of met my hero of, I want to be this hero. And I’m like, yeah, you go in, you draw something big, and it becomes a car and you go, ah, no, no, no.
Neale 08:50
Okay, so what put you off then? Because obviously you’re very creative and it’s a process-
Ian 08:50
I sat down with a guy who on a CAD programme, and he was 3D modelling a CAD programme. And there was an exploded Mini on the wall. So every part of the Mini was on that wall. So a massive, you know, like a model kit.
Neale 08:50
Before it’s put together.
Ian 08:50
Yeah, it was like that.
Neale 08:50
Yeah, door and handle-
Ian 08:50
And this guy was like, I designed the engine bracket for that miniature. And I went, oh, they said they’ve got rid of it. It wasn’t part of the car. I know it’s part of the car. I’m not very happy about that. And I was like, you can’t see it, can you? You can only see it because it’s on the wall over there. It’s kind of teasing you going, ah, I’m in the car. I don’t want to mute you. It was just like, all right. So you don’t design the whole car. You design part. You’re a part of a team who design bits of the car. And then that car comes together and it’s the whole part of it. But actually, you might just be tweaking just the headlight or the fuel filter.
Neale 08:50
You wanted the whole shoot.
Ian 08:50
Yeah, I was like, because I knew the whole thing.
Ian 11:12
You’re not the whole thing.
Neale 11:13
No, no, no.
Ian 11:14
There we go. But there are obviously some very well-respected and very well-known car designers who put their names against cars. You know, Frank Steffensen, Ian Callum, you know, kind of legendary car designers, you know, the likes of the Jag F types and the other iconic ones. So yeah, I was like, after that week, I was like, I don’t want to just do the bit.
Neale 11:41
You want more creativity. You didn’t want death by committee.
Ian 11:44
Yeah, yeah. So I was like, okay. It’s probably a good thing that I was 15 and I could go, okay, well, I’ll try. I’ll do something. But I was really good at school. I was just really good at drawing. Really, really good. Drawing was my thing.
Neale 11:59
Did you take that through to A-levels and university?
Ian 12:02
Yes, well, I did. I did three arts at school. So the art, textiles, graphics, the only kid ever to do all three arts at that school and get A-starred in all three of them at the same time. I then moved on to do illustration. I didn’t want to do an A-level. For them, some A-levels, you’ve got to do art and then English or art and then something else. I was like three arts. And then I want to just do a B-tech, which is like just art. And I did it at just an art college. So it wasn’t the art department in a college. It was an art college, which is great. Because when you’ve got a whole lot of art students, they are like the mismatch of society. And they’ve put them all into the same building. And it works perfectly because they all don’t match. They all don’t work together. They don’t work outside. They work in that context of a building of art students and whatever.
Neale 13:00
Was that creative mind, isn’t it? You sort of you pitch them together. They don’t know what they kind of stick out like a sore thumb when they work together in a machine. But individually in a group.
Ian 13:08
Yeah, and that’s what I wanted. So I went to Sunk helpful college, which had a standalone art college. I did illustration, started illustration. And then the second year of my illustration, they then brought out the Apple Max. I remember the old school Apple Max, which had the green-
Neale 13:24
A different coloured one-
Ian 13:25
The ones on the back. So they’re probably in a museum somewhere there.
Neale 13:29
The iMac, wasn’t it?
Ian 13:30
Yeah, something like that. It’s like, well, when did I graduate? 23 years ago. So this has been 26 years ago for college. Yeah. So yeah. in that second year of illustration, they went, oh, we’re going to be moving onto the Macs now. And I went, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I paint and I draw. I don’t do it on computer. I don’t want to go into an art package. I physically, this is how I create.
Neale 14:00
Do you still have that mindset now?
Ian 14:02
Oh God yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Neale 14:03
Very much hands-on rather than using the technology.
Ian 14:05
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Neale 14:06
Have you tried? Just out of interest, it’s sort of like a mindset that-
Ian 14:11
I mean, what I find funny now, not funny, what’s interesting now, is that with the growth of, there’s literally an AI thing on the radio on the way here. It’s about musicians. Musicians not liking the AIs and they’re allowed to, companies are now being allowed to scrape.
Neale 14:28
They can, yeah, they can basically get a, like a George Michael, put all his music into a part and then they can go create a George Michael song based on this area. They can get his voice down to a T, they can reproduce.
Ian 14:40
And obviously, you know, chat GPT and all those kind of products as image-based programs where they go, oh, create me as a Lego person. Then all of a sudden you’ll see all this thing on social media. Somebody’s made themself and they look like a doll or whatever. And it’s all, yeah, quite clearly it’s AI generated. Okay, some bits that I’ve, yeah, like there’s a fun element to it. As a professional artist that I’m paid to create an image, for somebody to be able to go into a program and go, create me a Pop Bang Colour.
Neale 15:11
Well, you could, you could, you could go, get a collection, collate like a series of your images that we have round here. And we’ll show some through over, I’m sure through this episode. Yeah, here’s 20 Ian Cook Pop Bang images. Here’s a picture of my favourite car, an actual photograph. Create me a Pop Bang style. How do you feel about that?
Ian 15:34
I mean, I’d hope that, I hope, isn’t it? I just hope is that people contact me and go, I want to have my own thing drawn by you, by the human that is, that is you.
Neale 15:47
That is Ian Cook.
Ian 15:48
I mean, I can’t, you know, I can’t take, you know, it’d be silly for me to be like, oh, I’m going to take all my images off the internet and therefore you can’t, you know.
Neale 15:56
You still need to promote yourself. You still need to have an online presence. People need to find you.
Ian 16:00
And you’ve got to, you’ve got to be like, this is me, you know, and I, and I, you know, to put watermarks on everything or, you know, to put just, if it’d be real, it would be, it would only affect my business. But yeah, so, so what I have found is that, I’ve usually got a poster now that says, the only AI you will see is artist Ian. So people take photographs of that, cause they’re like, oh, that’s really clever. You know, you’re kind of leaning into it to say, this isn’t, this isn’t AI. There is a person here, I’m it. And you’ll find him in that little calf, drawing away like now.
Neale 16:38
Is there any place for a few as an artist? No, so we’ve talked, AI comes up a lot on this podcast. So you can imagine we talked about people in tech. So we were chatting the other month to a lady called, Helen Carrey, who’s a copywriter. Obviously you see a lot of blog posts and stuff now created by AI. And you can always tell where it is, the way it’s worded using hyphens, et cetera, et cetera. We’re getting a bit more savvier thing to it, but she’ll use it as like a, like almost like a mood board. So we like give me 10 ideas for X, Y, and Z or, you know, and then she can go through and go, okay, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll add that to my existing thing and use it as like a, as like an assistance. Is there any world for that in your world or?
Ian 17:18
Yeah, I think, I think the thing is is how, the world that I started the business in is completely different to what it is now. So I’ve changed and, you know, leant into it, use technology when I’ve had to.
Ian 17:36
But also fundamentally it is the process of painting with a car. It’s like, it’s a very physical thing. And as long as physically I could be able to do it still, then I’ll do it because I enjoy the process. And I enjoy, I also enjoy people looking at it and going, no. No, he’s not. No, he’s not doing that. No, I can’t. And then go and then-
Neale 18:03
The showman element, isn’t it?
Ian 18:04
Yeah. So yeah, and I think, you know, it’s a bit like, you know, performer on a stage. People will always want to go to a concert and see that before either they could just put the CD. Yeah, the CD showman, Spotify, Spotify. Yeah. That’s it. Just cut that. We’ll just say Spotify. Rewind the tape with a little pen. Rewind. All the musicians I would want in this suit are in my phone. But yes, it’s you still want to go. We still want to go see that live performance element. So and that’s what I aim to do. And that’s what I enjoy doing. And yeah, what I was saying about the so there was there was, you know, a bit of education, and I can use an artist link now at schools, which is which is lovely. It’s very nice when when parents go, oh, my son’s just studied.
Neale 18:52
He’s done an Ian Cook.
Ian 18:52
He’s just studied. He’s just done one of your artworks. And he’s done it, you know, with a-.
Neale 18:52
That’s got to be great.
Ian 18:52
And I’m like, that’s great. I’m like, you know, I try not to put my teacher head into that too much, because I can, I can get real-
Neale 18:52
Done greater than me. Yeah. Don’t go … Ah, that’s a B plus.
Ian 18:52
I mean, I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed. But yeah, there was, I was in an event recently. And this dad goes, she studied you for this link. And I went, Oh, that’s great. Yeah. And she stood there looked at my dad and went, he’s real. And I’m like, I’m here. She’s like, I can’t believe he’s, he’s there. I’ve seen him on YouTube. And he’s, he’s there. And I’m like, Hi!
Neale 18:52
That’s gottaa be a bit of a rock star moment, surely.
Ian 18:52
It’s lovely. It is nice when when, yeah, and even when there’s new artists on the scene, or there’s people who’ve, I’ve not had a chance to speak to and they’re like, Oh, you’ve, yeah, I see events, but you’re always really busy. So I haven’t had a chance to, to, to chat. It’s, yeah, it’s, it’s nice to kind of have that. Yeah. Yeah. There was that, I think there’s always, hopefully there will always be that people, people by people at the end of the day.
Neale 18:52
So we talked about rock star. We talked about Lewis Hamilton. You’re also a Guinness Record holder for another record, aren’t you? How many times Guinness World Record book holder-?
Ian 18:52
Well, I just, well, I just, I just have, well, I had the one, which is, yeah, which is the, yeah, with the world’s largest glow in the dark artwork which is done for Nissan. Back in 2015.
Neale 18:52
Sounds about that then.
Ian 18:52
So I was asked to paint a, a giant artwork with a real car, so-
Neale 18:52
I did not, this is a story I don’t know.
Ian 18:52
So yeah, it was a real car. So it wasn’t RC. It was like, right, we count, how can we upscale this in so that you paint with a real car?
Ian 20:48
You also only have a week to do it in.
Neale 20:50
Did they give you the car?
Ian 20:51
Well, there was a car that was to be used. Okay. Which was, which was, so basically done that record. So when you, when you, if a company wants to break a Guinness World Record, it’s why you don’t see that done every day, is that you pay Guinness £10,000, right? To, to feature to break there. And I imagine-
Neale 21:04
Is that just to attempt it or to-
Ian 21:04
To just attempt it. I imagine with inflation, it’s somewhat more than that now. Yeah. Cause that was 10 years ago. So, um, I imagine they’d probably go for, for the man to come out with his little blue jacket and measure with measuring tape.
Neale 21:04
Yeah. I wouldn’t mind his day rate – £10,000 a day.
Ian 21:04
Oh yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think they personally pocket it in like a brown envelope, but I would like that okay. ‘Derek, we’ve told you this before! You didn’t get that. That money’s not for you.’ Yeah. He’s just taking a check. Indeed. It is in his lunchbox. Oh yeah. It would have happened. Yeah. Not now. Back in the day. Not now. The BACS transfer now. But yeah, so Nissan. Anyways, so Nissan, there was a Nissan Leaf, so one of the very first electric cars, and they wanted to break it, this Guinness World Record of the glow-in-the-dark. So yeah, the world’s largest glow-in-the-dark artwork, very specific. These were the records were always quite specific, so when I did the marathon the other week the other month, there was lots of records being broken, but they’re all very specific to like, four-wheeled objects or, yes, it was all very specific. I don’t think they pay, I think they pay as a PR thing, I presume, who knows. So yeah, so that was filmed in the Blackhanger Studios, it’s where they filmed Harry Potter, so they had all the Harry Potter photos, of all those people. And it’s a giant hangar, which is because it needs to be a building that didn’t have any pillars.
Neale 21:04
You need to be able to drive round and not be interrupted.
Ian 21:04
Yeah, and a hangar where planes go, they don’t have any pillars. So yes, we were filming in this studio, in this hangar, and everything was done under blacklight, so blacklight only works when it’s completely pitch black, then blacklight will do its thing, whether it’s a luminescent or fluorescent. So whether it absorbs UV light and glows, or whether it fluoresces under UV light, blacklight will do it. Both processes will light up. Apart from the car that absorbed the light, and obviously for continuity on a video, it had to constantly look like it was at the same depth of charge, but it couldn’t look like it was losing its charge for the video. So the car had to keep on going back to be recharged, for it to be driven back on, and unlike a normal RC, which you can kind of, you know, just do that and go, oh, I want to change wheels to that side, that’s fine.
Neale 21:04
Or you could just move it slightly to the-
Ian 21:04
Yeah. Or imagine like a typewriter. So you had to like, had to kind of paint like a typewriter, so that that was always the painting wheels. And so, so yeah, so that was, that was a-
Neale 24:26
Challenge
Ian 24:26
Yeah, it was a challenge. It was, it was, it was almost also- , because when we printed the outline in very, very, very fady like very faint, UV paint, because I couldn’t draw that big, because it was just huge, it was massive. I mean, literally the car on top of it looked like a toy. And the camera was right in the roof, so we got a lockdown of it. But yeah, it turns out when they printed the, they printed the, when they did the sample piece, which worked, the sample piece, they changed the material between the sample and the finished. So when they turn the lights off and turn the black light on, and yeah, we could see there was an outline when the lights were on, when the lights went off, they didn’t, they couldn’t see. That’s the first one. That’s a challenge. You can’t see, and then you’ve got a team, you’ve got a team going, sorry, how are we going to, how are we going to do this? Yeah, well, yeah, we’ll work on this. We’ll make it work, it’ll be fine. You just kind of like, it’s that old kind of swan thing, isn’t it? Like perfectly up here. But the legs are going. But you’re like, you’re starting to go, oh, oh, this is a, now what’s going on? Anyway, we made, it all worked, it all worked out all right. And the, I still remember being so, because they probably sent a man with a jacket, but it wasn’t, yeah, it’s all official. You’ll kind of shoot out and he measured it and make sure that it’s, yeah, yeah. That’s a 10,000 pounds worth. Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly, he’s getting a little worth. So, and then when they said, yes, you have broken it, I was like, yeah.
Neale 26:16
That must have been a good feeling, right?
Ian 26:17
It was great. It was great. And yeah, the thing is, you never-
Neale 26:20
Did you get like a trophy or an award or like-?
Ian 26:24
I’ve got a print out of the, I’ve got a duplicate copy. Because Nissan paid for it. Right. Yeah, it’s only fair, isn’t it? And they got the, yeah, then I got a copy of it. Same with my studio, people who walk in, they go: ‘Is that a Guinness World Record?’ I’m like, yeah. And the only other thing they did is that it was recorded in March, the 20th of March it was recorded. But they then released it on April 1st. So everyone just assumed it was a joke. Right, sure. But because it was in Europe, it was a European- so in Europe. They loved it. There was no reference to April Fool’s Day. In the UK, for the artists, and I’m going, I’ve done this, and people are like, nah. Yeah, nice one. Yeah, nice one. Yeah, we don’t believe you.
Neale 27:12
What a slap in the face!
Ian 27:14
Hey, the video is still there. And I’ve still got a certificate. And I did it. And I can still milk my achievement from it 10 years after doing it. Thanks as I haven’t done another one, but that doesn’t matter.
Neale 27:29
That’s fine. You’ve got the one. You’ve got the one. Speaking of big car brands, you have a Volkswagen, have a Golf GTI done. Are they locked up in there? Yeah, well, they have. Yeah, I was asked to paint one of them. Yeah, over the years, I’ve done, you know, it’s weird. Like sometimes it feels sometimes it feels like it’s five years, like three, four, three, four. And then when you go, it’s been 18, 18 years. Oh, oh. And it’s and there’s there’s been many highlights in that.
Ian 28:02
And there’s things I’ve done which have been really cool. But that Golf was done at Goodwood. And I, you know, painted on top of it.
Neale 28:10
And it was the first one because a lot of them are stickers. Yes, that’s it. I’m sure my not stickers, but they’re done a wrap.
Ian 28:17
Yes, that one was. So the original car was wrapped and then and then I painted the wrap. But it was like, but I then they then lacquered that car. So that that wrap ain’t coming off. No, no, no, not in any.
Neale 28:29
And what a proud achievement, though, it’s it’s it’s stored because Volkswagen keep a copy of like certain models and their certain cars and you’ve painted one and it’s there.
Ian 28:37
Yeah, it was painted with with all of the kind of the GTI’s from the from Gen six, I think. So all the previous generations featured on it. And this is quite funny because I had one of the tech guys from from Volkswagen working with me to take the car apart as I was doing it. I mean, the paint built up on the roof alone is like thick. It’s it’s really exciting. Pasto this guy was like, oh, you know, Ian, I’ve rehung the door, what you did yesterday, I have rehung them this morning. And I went, oh, they’re going to marry it. Or I was like, no, I think it was cold last night. Right. And you’ve you’ve just hung the doors when it’s cold. So you’ve got cold paint on what is cold. Yeah, that’s just going to run, isn’t it? Yeah. So we went around this one side and the paint have gone-. I’m like, no. And he’s like, I’m really, I’m really sorry. No, it’s fine. Paint dries, isn’t it? It will dry in the sun and we’ll redo it. It’s fine.
Neale 29:36
But these things, you know, you have to think about when you’ve got a canvas and a brush. It’s-
Ian 29:40
Yeah. So that was that was that was quite a last minute. Wasn’t that for you in terms of sometimes how much time you have to plan something. That’s quite short time scale. You know, and then this year for Goodwood, we’re doing Tamiya. So we’re doing some exclusive stuff with Tamiya, which is going to be really exciting. Tamiya is Tamiya is this. This is a Tamiya. This is a Tamiya. This is known as Vanessa’s lunchbox. This is a custom version, which is my own. The wrap on my van is the same. It was a miniature version of my van. And Tamiya are the leading, if not the best, well, best known Japanese manufacturer of RC cars. So they are I’m working with them this year. So we’re going to do an exclusive lunchbox, which you can buy like this. Not this one, but a version of it. And this artwork. And I’ve done the artwork. The artwork of the box art is really cool. So I’ve done some of the box art. I’m going to do some prints and some stuff. And then Mr. Tamir is coming over. Fantastic. Which is really cool. Yeah, it was exciting. So no pressure.
Neale 30:46
No, not when you get the bus working though. It’s yeah. So so yes, they’re not they’re not known for their attention to detail. Are they? So-
Ian 30:54
Yeah. Or organized or like really organized on time, politeness, dressed well, dressed well, subtly. I mean, I think I’d blend in. – the loud noises.
Neale 31:05
You’ll be fine. Why? What an ambassador. I mean, oh, yeah, I think it’s fair to say. I mean, yeah, you obviously got a lot of personality. You’re an artist. You’re a trailblazer who’s blazed it tires in paint. But you’ve kind of done this career on your own terms. If you’re going up, I mean, you’re young, 23. You know, you just you went for it. You took your chance. What advice would you give to someone either following any passion, whether it’s art, science, technology? What would you say to people? Who are looking sort of who’ve got a vision for something who want to do it?
Ian 31:41
I really wanted it. I want I really wanted it. And I it’s almost like I’m never happy with myself because I am happy. It’s just that I am determined to always be like I want something more. What’s next? Yeah, yeah. After the Lewis one, I could have gone, you know what? I’m never I’m never going to top that. But I didn’t. I was like, right. Well, what’s next? Well, I want a Blue Peter Badge. Right. How do I get the Blue Blue Peter Badge? Got the Blue Peter Badge. Right. How do I get to F1? How do I have it? How do I travel with this? All right. Yeah, we’ll go out to Abu Dhabi. We’ll do it in in this. And yeah, so every time there’s a little bit of a challenge, I kind of it kind of excites me because I’m like, OK, like this is didn’t. I’ve done some of the next thing. This is the next thing. Yeah. The thing is, there wasn’t there wasn’t somebody that I could copy and paste from. There wasn’t somebody that I could go, okay, how’s he done-
Neale 32:35
That’s why I said trailblazings. Yeah.
Ian 32:37
It’s just like, I was just like, right, I’ll try this and I’ll do this. Yeah, okay. Sometimes it will fail. And sometimes I get it wrong. But you know what you learn, you learn from those mistakes more than than this. Yeah, sometimes this is a great – The Lois thing, Guinness World Record. The key ones which you go, I mean, it was, it was a heart like when I did the F1 one out of Monza. I mean, working you’re working within F1 as a contractor doing my thing. That was hard. Like that was hard work for a few days. Monza it rained, paint famously doesn’t like like water at all. Particularly really humid rain like humid, not great. We did the best. Yeah. And I still I still look fondly on it as okay, but I it probably wasn’t the best.
Neale 33:37
But you took something away.
Ian 33:39
But I took something away from it. And I’ve done, you know, I’ve been out to America a couple of times. The third time didn’t work out quite so well. Turns out if you fly to Detroit and with all your equipment, and somebody goes, can I look at your visa? And and you go here, here it is. And they’re like, Oh, you haven’t got the correct visa. They’ll put you back on the they’ll put you on the plane.
Neale 34:01
With you- With your tools and-
Ian 34:02
Oh, yeah, well, that all that all would have been taken off you anyway, along with your passport. Right. And you’re detained for three hours. Okay. And and and the security man definitely doesn’t like you. And doesn’t have a sense of humor. Doesn’t have Yeah. And the security goes, why are you the only person in the world that can paint with radio control cars?
Ian 34:23
And I went, Yeah, yeah, I am actually. What, no American could do this? Like, nope, that’s why I’m here. Yeah, so yeah, that was an interesting flight, you know, spending kind of 30, 30 plus hours in transit.
Neale 34:41
Well, you’re never going to fail at the wrong visa ever again, surely.
Ian 34:44
Yeah. And then, you know, there was like a big red stamp. But, you know, denied. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, if everything goes well, you know, the stories. So when you’re doing school talks or whatever, or corporate emails, and they go, oh, has it ever gone wrong? I’m like, yes. Yeah, here’s a good example of when it’s, you know, when it has gone wrong.
Neale 35:07
Sorry, I always tell my friends, whenever you do, whenever you’re on holiday, it’s like, did you have a great time, like, yes, it was amazing. But here’s the interesting bits. And it’s always the bits that go wrong, because people want to-
Ian 35:18
Yeah, like, like with the F1 stuff, it was like, who would have known it would have rained for so long, a humid rain in the summer in Italy. Like, it just, it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t have been a thing. No, you know, but when you arrive, you go, this is, but then, you know, I’m painting it. And the, and the, the Marshall, like amazing, like the passion in Monza is just incredible. Like, if you ever get a chance to go do F1 Italy, I just experienced the, the force that are the Ferrari fans. Yeah. And yes, and I’m painting it and this guy is: ‘Italy is Ferrari. Ferrari is Italy, Italy loves art’. And I’m like, under so much pressure. And I’m like, hey, don’t say anything nice. Yeah, because I’m gonna cry. You don’t understand. You don’t understand how much and you saying anything nice is gonna trig- absolutely trigger me. So just thank you. Thank you. Can I-
Neale 36:19
Yeah. Yeah. But now leave me alone. I’m far too English and reserved to take this question.
Ian 36:19
So yeah, and the whole thing of me, you know, painting on my knees, I just felt absolutely destroyed. Like, oh my God, this has just gone so wrong. But then there’s this lovely Italian man just telling me how much he loves the art. So it’s, yeah, so yeah, that was, but yeah, like I said, I just, I kind of, I kind of forget the, you know, this has been like loads of, you know, I did Goodwood 2019 with Michelin. That was an amazing, amazing event. Yeah, it was just, just prior to COVID, it was like the busiest Goodwood. I had a prime spot. I was with Michelin and it was just like, it was just, everything was just like, I was like, this is, and then in 2023, I went back, I painted again, Goodwood. And that was with, with Disney Pixar. So I I joined-
Neale 36:19
– just casually dropped in with Disney Pixar.
Ian 36:19
Yeah. So basically, during COVID, I did a lot- the line drawing style. So the continuous continuous line. Yeah. So yeah. So basically, yeah. So we’ve got an example here. So, so this is how they had it. So that’s, that’s how they finish. That’s how they start. So that’s kind of, that’s kind of, they’re starting a single line without taking a pen off.
Ian 37:41
So start, finish, that’s obviously a pipe. And that’s what I started on literally on the on the Friday of, so when Boris went, blah, blah, blah, everybody stayed, stay at home and you know, and I was like, that’s why we had to strip my studio. Me and my wife drove down to Fargo, where my studio is, we filled both cars full of materials, yeah, whatever it was, whatever we need, well, I’ll take it. And then that was it, I’ll take it back home and work out how to do my job from home. You know, whatever that could be, I’ll do it. So that was on Tuesday, on a Friday I started, so Landrover had just launched a new Defender, and then I drew the new Defender, because it’s very simple, like, it’s a box, yeah.
Neale 38:33
Well-designed box, yeah.
Ian 38:37
So I started that, and then within like five drawings, six, maybe, they became commissions, they became more toward it, and I started to share it online, so I was doing it as Facebook Lives, as Instagram Lives, people could watch it, because they were also-
Neale 38:51
Had nothing else to do.
Ian 38:52
They were also at home going, what is going on? I’m like, I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll have a go, and then me and my wife, yeah, when she finished work, she’d be on the, both would be drinking gin, whilst I was drawing, and just getting feedback from it, and getting people’s interactions, and that just went, that went really well, so we’ve got about 200 drawings, within, I don’t know, three weeks?
Neale 39:00
Wow, that’s a big teller.
Ian 39:00
I was just drawing all the time. Check it out, yeah. Because I was just like, check out the next day. They’re all doing about an hour, an hour and a half, so I can do-
Neale 39:00
I suppose it’s like, it’s finding a new passion, isn’t it?
Neale 39:26
If you find a new thing that you wanna get involved in, you just, it’s when you first start a drawing, you just draw, draw, draw. Draw, yeah, yeah.
Ian 39:33
So, So by then we got to drawing 210 I think it was and then the race driver said oh look if you want an intercom just put this thing in we can go we can go live I can join you and you can share the feed and we can talk talk and chat and draw I was like cool let’s do that um and then so by doing that it shared the feed then more people got to see what was going on um and then I had more race drivers go oh am I next and I went there isn’t a list I’m not gonna make a list fine and I just so I just went through my black book of people who I thought would be interested chat to who were available right near people in the industry um and that just became the next part of the of the of the chapter of those drawings is that they became live feeds with people that people knew who I just met at events and was like do a chat and you know a few people said no that’s fine yeah that’s fine yeah-
Neale 40:28
But the ones that do you say you’ve you you’ve made these connections utilize them and-
Ian 40:35
It wasn’t it was just yeah so that was that so that’s the draw the drawings just escalated from there um and that’s where yes they’re all numbered they’re all they all they all have a you know they’re all in the series of continuous car yeah and and I converted the studio car so we’re basically a a track day company said oh that she was like I’ve seen your drawings we’d like it as a thing a track track as a bit of entertainment in the pits or paddock or whatever so I had the shambles but wasn’t being used at all that was just out I think that was on my parents drive um wasn’t being used and I was like okay well I’ll project I’ll make a project and just see if it one of these things like a bit like everything I do so yeah it was what was literally yeah I wasn’t using the car yeah it’s not my it wasn’t the central car so if I do take out the back yeah smash out the speakers and take out the back seats it’s no it’s not where you lose any value it’s kind of the value of the car is nothing anyway um.
Neale 41:35
We asked before about advice sort of like you’re saying what advice would you give and I think that probably sums it up doesn’t it give it a go see where it leads.
Ian 41:42
Just yeah like it’s I think that’s about yeah what’s what’s to say is no it’s like yeah I don’t know I’ve always had that kind of you know determination and drive to be like right can I do better what could you know and I know it’s an being from the fine art training that you had real you had crits every week and those crits were criticisms yeah yeah yeah yeah they could be crisp yeah for people not in the fine art yeah and it was like a group of people who would always like kind of sometimes they’re brutal yeah a lot of pressure a lot of pressure and but also if you’d have as long as you had the the combat say this is why I’ve done this I’ve been influenced by this this is why yeah I’ve looked at this the reasoning behind the reason behind it I think that’s um that’s what I’ve I’ve always tried to to do.
Neale 42:33
So for some people that would lead to fear but for you it sounds like it’s, well I’ve faced that and then let’s just try if I can survive that then yeah what else can I survive.
Ian 42:42
Yeah it’s um and like yeah I started you know 2008 was a global financial crash you know survive that survive depend that like it’s got all these things that yeah and that and that the drawing thing yeah the drawing technique because it was during that time it pivoted the business it changed it, but it also meant that when I came out on the other side and I could go back to paintings I had two that first thing I could I could do the paintings and I could do drawings. Um which makes now makes me doubly as busy because I’ve got both things to to do um but it’s a bit like you know this year doing the like London Marathon was like why it’s a task and I’m like right let’s do it yeah it’s not not it’s not a business thing it was more of a it was for the first time ever really in a long time it was a personal achievement thing rather than going, right this is for Pop Bang Colour and advancing the brand. But I could lean into the contacts I’d built through that to go- Because London Marathon is a bit like a British Grand Prix everybody knows what the British Grand Prix is because it’s it’s a brand it’s a brand it’s a thing because so many people are involved yeah it happened and the same with marathon everybody knows what the marathon is so and and that was like that’s what was really cool this year about bringing bringing that in was um to get to get that bit of gold yeah to get that bit of that bit there.
Neale 44:07
Fantastic achievement!
Ian 44:08
But um but it was it was it was it was just great that the companies did get involved uh who I’d who I had worked with but also you know the my you know the the the the group that I run with you know the ex-military I’ve worked with Mission Motorsport who ex-military so for for my understanding of how they worked I was like I can refer it back to people I’ve worked with previously.
Neale 44:31
Yeah, and it all brings back a nice little circle.
Ian 44:33
Yeah yeah absolutely I’m just I’ve always just been I did somebody who determined to to work work out what the solution is and the problem solves the solution and uh and generally it works, generally.
Neale 44:45
Ian, thanks very much, that’s been great!
Ian 44:49
Pleasure!
Neale 44:49
Thank you!