“Leicestershire artist Neil Gardner has been passionate about cars for almost 40 years – he’s almost 40 – and has wanted to draw them ( and aircraft ), since he could hold a pencil. With a car and aircraft crazy father – a fantastic engineer – it’s not difficult to see where those passions came from!
Throughout school, art and sport were Neil’s favourite subjects and, although he enjoyed them, he always found them the most daunting! This was primarily because of his fear of not being the best at whatever it was that he wanted to do. Luckily, this is something Neil has managed to temper with age and experience! ( Neil keeps his feet on the ground with the thought that, ‘no matter what you do, there’s always someone better at it – although they may not have realised it’! )
Having left school and going on to try his hand at various vocations – from making battery packs, to instructing car control for various racing schools, Police forces, manufacturers and car clubs, Neil has spent a good period of his working life so far in factories, dreaming of something better…
When, in 2009, Neil was given a place on a Drawing and Sketching class, run by a local artist, his passion for art was truly reignited. Having completed the course, he signed up for more lessons straight away. A drawing of his father’s AC Cobra replica was soon completed and placed onto his car forum. Within 2 days, Neil had his first two commissions and NG AutoArt was born..
Since that day, Neil has been invited to talk about his work on local radio and a piece of his work was exhibited on the Classic Citroen stand at the Paris Motor Show. His work has been seen at the Goodwood Revival and also at local art exhibitions.
A keen eye for detail and capturing as much of it as is possible, as well as endeavouring to give a realistic feel to his drawings, are the backbone of Neil’s style. For the future, he is working hard to build up to “Hyper Realism” – an absolute photographic look – and also to introduce colour to his works. Neil is also a keen portrait artist and very much enjoys capturing expressive faces with his pencil!
You can keep up to date with Neil’s projects on Instagram ( @ngautoart ), Twitter (@ngautoart ) and Facebook here.
Neil has kindly sent us some of his work to enjoy and you can see them below. Always respect copyright.
More featured artists here.