AUGUST 2017 _ http://www.popularmechanics.co.za 51
rare classic. To the man who commissioned
it, this rendering of a beloved Cortina 3-litre
GLS is all about the power of nostalgia.
“Nostalgia is a big part of it,” says Erwin.
After completing a degree in interior
design, where his watercolour skills came
to fruition in creating architectural render-
ings, Erwin got his first real job at a furni-
ture manufacturer. In search of something
more stimulating than CNC setting-up,
Joburg-raised Erin relocated to Cape Town,
where he freelanced in 3D architectural
renderings while keeping his creative juices
flowing by designing artwork for T-shirts.
“I was playing with a lot of stencils. It
was the start of something else; through
playing with stencils I discovered a lot
more could be done.”
Cars re-entered the picture a few years
ago. “My early efforts were very basic. I
cut stencils and then did just flat colours
using a spray can. After a while, I thought
there could be a good market for this. I de-
cided that if I could airbrush through the
stencils I could get more realistic, get a
little more depth going.”
It took a while to get that point, though.
His first airbrush four or five years ago
seemed at first like a case of wasted money.
“It was a pretty budget model. Then a year
or two down the line, I bought myself a
proper (and much more expensive) Paasche.
Even mechanically the original one is inferior
to the Paasche. It blocks quickly, there’s a
notchiness to the action and the Paasche is
smoother. The original one was a suction-
fed design; the Paasche is gravity-fed. At
least the original airbrush came in a kit
with a compressor. It would be nice to have
a little more power on the compressor,but this one will do the job.” Fortunately,
he persevered. “I thought, this is actually
a sellable market, a commodity.” As of a
year ago, he’s focused on cars and the odd
bike. His coming-out at the Classic Car
and Bike Show in Plumstead, Cape Town,
brought in a few commisions, one of
them being a plane.
Surprisingly, he says, there doesn’t seem
to be much local competition. “Internation-
ally, there is a lot. I follow them all on
Instagram. The guys in the UK, USA, Saudi
Arabia. A lot of them are using markers.
That’s where I’m quite different, because
I’m using paints, watercolours and acrylics.”
Markers are generally used on smoother
paper whereas watercolours use more tex-
tured paper and acrylics go on canvas. He
believes his kind of technique allows a more
painterly quality compared with the marker
technique, “You can actually still see the
strokes, especially with watercolour, which
is my favourite. You can see where theMustang!
An aviation fanatic wanted a
painting of a classic aeroplane
to fit into an existing frame for
a specific space in a house. “As
the size of this frame dictated a
picture larger than any paper size
available, I had to ditch my usual
watercolour approach and go
with acrylic on canvas.”
The MG (main picture) was
done for the same client.u