History Proper Scallops

circa 1961

Hello,

This is one of the earliest saved artworks from a struggling teenager. My brother’s racing rccovering form of the next level of adventure. A 4x4 Jeep FC truck so, no rough surface roads or trails to discovering secret surf spots in Baja Mexico would hold us back. This was one of his wild ideas that actually came to fruition. But, the old truck was top running, but top running was not meant for long distance road trips of 200 miles or more.

It was the worst handling, vehicle despite the local Jeep Dealer doing a full maintenance/problem solving check up locally. The lack of power fully loaded with three surfers, three longboards and supplies for a week of camping/surfing made us stay in the slow lane going up a steep hill in Camarillo, California. It was on our way home heading to Los Angeles on the 101 freeway.

We got pulled over, despite being in the slow lane by the local CHP patrol car. The nice officer told us to get off of the freeway as we were going too slow. “but, officer, we were in the slow lane.” Although that sounded nice, he told us to get off at the next level exit and head for the coastline’s flat roads. Or a “no speeding ticket” or a road hazard ticket would be issued. Ha!!!

We learned the expertise in Surfboard riding, yes, but the art needed work. We learned to do scallops from our art teacher in junior high school. He knew of all kinds of art and when asked after we did our required subjects, he showed us how to start.

It all started with the letter “C.” put enough of them together nicely spaced was the start of the design. Now with a ruler, make the top of the “C” straight to where ever you want to stop. Attach each one to the next one and now it starts coming together. At first, our all looked weird. But, as we kept at it, no need for a ruler. We could draw our rough scallops on our notebooks and work sheets in class. Sometimes, we even got a “smile art work” back from the teacher.

But our old cars or hot rods looked awful and when we added the rough scallops, they too, look like we were mad at the artwork of old cars. Artists we were not. Scribblers is more like it. But, it was a start.

As we got older, our off yellow/orange, Pee Chee Junior High School Notebooks disappeared and the blue canvas type material three ring binders took over for the next 4 years of high school and into college years.

Now, the artwork during class taking note time was relegated to the tops and sides of the lined paper. Unless there was a section for the art classes. Most students had color dividers to separate the different class work from the others. 6 to 7 classes for the whole day.

Jnaki

Over time it was the best form of mindless scribbling during a boring lecture or group discussion. The high school classes were the start, but the small class sizes did not always provide enough cover to finish drawing the early scallops or the newly acquired claw flames designs. Those took time and concentration. The hour class and teacher lecturing, while walking around left little room for concentrated art work.

Now, those 100 student lecture halls in college were perfect for the time spent listening to the teacher or visiting lecturer go on about what ever. The art work started to get some final good looking scallops and flames.
A new version of an old art work from way back…added to a custom 50 Ford Convertible.

Coming up to today’s standards for art design, kudos to those fantastic artists that can draw a set of flames in pinstriping tape sized curves to set up the first layer of paint spray. Then go on to add different layers of color to finish the design.

Scallops are definitely easier to draw as it is the “old style letter C” and straight lines. So sometimes, it is easier to draw it on drawn hot rod artwork as a highlight design.

Below, is a still art work showing the latest hot rod design for the El Mirage Lakes in So Cal. A Plymouth Sedan made into a streamlined, Sedan Delivery for top speed runs. Pushing it to the starting line is a similar custom Plymouth Sedan made into a Nomad style Station Wagon with full A/C blasting as it is hot out there… YRMV

 

No doubt the Granvilles did it best. But Waco was a very close second.