There’s an odd little church nearby for born-again-bikers; the pastor and church members are outlaw bikers who have converted to Christianity and today they held a funeral for one of their members. There were hundreds of motorbikes, some really gorgeous ones – Triumphs, Harleys, a few vintage and everyone turned up in full colours as a mark of respect. They were from all over the place and were not just the Christian bikers [whose colours bear the logo ‘God Squad’]. It was a great scribbling opportunity and as I was sketching it took me back to my own wild youth, I was a biker chick and rode several BSAs and a Triumph. The occasion reminded me of two of my old biker friends who died from tragic accidents, ironically not involving motorbikes, when they were in their twenties. It’s over two decades ago now but today’s funeral brought the grief back very suddenly and sharply. When people die, we struggle on and gradually the grief fades into the background, but never really goes away, waiting to be activated by something, like it was earlier.
I don’t know the biker whose funeral it was today – someone said his name was Baz – his friends did him proud. It was a fantastic turnout; the streets around were full and the police held up the traffic so the hearse could be accompanied by an unbroken convoy of hundreds of motorbikes. My friend, neighbour and fellow artist, Mel, posted photos of the cortege on Facebook here. It was good discipline for me to sketch a crowd, I normally work with single figures so I need to practice putting people together, getting the perspective and proportions right. I also rarely draw inanimate objects, so doing the bikes was a challenge – how do designers cope with it? Their brains, and patience, must be phenomenal!
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This’s one of my favourite sketches and posts since I joined WordPress. The drawings are well executed and I love the context and humanity they convey.
Thank you so much. I sometimes feel as if I’m a bit odd, drawing at funerals, but that’s what artists do and so far no-one seems to have been offended.
Rosie you have so many talents, would love to have a copy of these sketches, unfortunately I could not make the funeral but my husband did, I could not see Mels photos! Ditto frozenroom! Heidi
Hello Heidi, I’ll drop a CD with the images into Zac’s and ask the pastor to let people have copies if they want. Alternately, you could download the two images, I’m happy for people to do that for their personal use.
Fantastic drawings, Rosie. Any chance of getting copies for Zac’s Place, do you think? Liz (part of the church there)
Thank you Liz. Please send me an email address and I’ll send the pictures over as jpegs 🙂
Lovely to read your observations and see your sketches Rosie (Sean, at Zac’s Place here) – feel free to drop in for a cuppa! – we have some pieces of art inside Zac’s which may be of interest to you and any fellow artists – paint and sculpture mainly – some pretty quirky….. would love to see any pictures Mel took as we were so wrapped up dealing with what we needed to my camera stayed at home … you can contact us via the email at zacsplace.org contact page if you like or just drop in and ask for me.
Thank you Sean. I’ve put a link to Mel’s pictures in my blog, just click and you should be able to see them.
Great drawings. Took me back to my youth and a similar event.
Thanks Judith. I’ve had quite a few people message me on Twitter and Facebook saying they’ve had similar losses. Our generation maybe – the wild ones.
How fab to have such an amazing sendoff, his friends did him proud. Great drawing too 🙂
Thanks Doodlemum. It was a terrific sight. I was privileged to see it.
I love the honesty of your blogs, thank you.
You’re welcome and thank you for your comment.
Very Lovely drawings and observations Rose! It looks like quite a send off!
Thanks Kara, it was a terrific funeral, all the neighbours were out taking photos and videos – only me sketching though as usual 🙂 Thanks for letting me know
no problemo!
That is so true. Something quite unexpected can trigger a memory of a loved one long gone.
I think you’ve risen to the challenge of crowd sketching admirably though 😉
Thank you, I really got into it.