Our good friend Rick Wilson does some really cool automotive art. He recently sent us his year in review, check it out here-

 

Rick Wilson Custom Car Art and Drag Racing Art Prints

2014 was an absolutely wonderful growth year for Rick Wilson Custom Car Art and for my secondary website Drag Racing Art Prints. My website visitorship grew some 500%.  I had some magazine coverage, did about 200 new renderings for paying customers who wished to have their vehicles rendered, and covered 18 car shows during the year, mainly in CA and NV.  I also had several cars built as a result of the work I did for the owners out there.

I attended the GoodGuys up north, did the Del Mar GoodGuys event, saw my first NSRA event at Bakersfield, covered the shows at Oxnard, Monrovia, Fresno, the WCK event in Santa Maria, and did the most amazing Pismo Beach show, among others.  I picked up several commercial accounts along the way, including customers who own businesses who want to use my art in their flyers and in their sales brochures, plus I have three companies who want to use my art integrated with their metal sign creations and posters.  I also have drag strips back East who will use my art.

Then, there’s the use of my art in T-shirts by vendors, plus the art I have done for customers is finding its way into their own T-shirts featuring their cars I drew.  Add to that the fact that I have three more magazine features coming up, and it all makes for a nice immediate future for this hobby of mine that has kept me quite busy along the way.

I did my taxes, and I have figured I am going to be able to concentrate on staying home more in 2015 and get some art produced that I want to do just for my own selfish reasons.  I made a nice profit for the year, so I’m happy.  New art will all end up on my websites, so all of you can go pick off the prints at just $1.00 each.  All my art remains on 80-lb heavy art stock, 11”x17” format, and fits easily into a Wal-Mart $3.99 glass-faced picture frame (see Page 1 of my main site to look at some hanging on my art wall).

2015 will find me cranking out art for vehicles associated with Larry Watson, Bill Cushenberry, Bill Reasoner, Richard Zocchi, Oz Welch, cars from the Cut Outs and Renegades from my old Long Beach neighborhood in the 50’s, John Rasmussen, Gene Adams and Don Enriques, more Ivo stuff, John Peters, Tom Grove, Shirley Shahan, Shirley Muldowney, Larry Dixon, Jack Williams, John Wynderski, Jimmy Farcello, Dick Jackson, Joe Bailon, Joe Ortiz, Beebe and Mulligan, Gas Ronda, Gene Winfield, Darryl Starbird, Cecil Yother, Dale Emory, Dale Armstrong, Chuck Poole, Jim Davis, Don Cook, Dennis Baca, and countless others.  This stuff just has to get done, or I’m not happy !!  I still will work for the general public, just not so much.

Then, 2015 has opened some more doors for me.  John Maurice is going to have me be somewhat of a resident artist for his Traditional Kustoms Magazine out of Sherman Oaks CA.  He has the 4^th issue imminently due out now and I will not only be doing some art but also clicking a few pictures of possible feature cars soon.  John wants to bring back the Restyler’s corner stuff of the 1950’s-60’s where artists and builders presented styling ideas on a regular basis.  I am really digging that !!

Of course, I still have my distant eyes on doing formal 10’x10’ displays down the road at major indoor shows.  The down stroke is that it is so damned expensive to rent space at places like the Grand National Roadster Show, Sacramento, NSRA,  GoodGuys, Boise, Salt Lake City, etc.  If you add up the rent,  motels, gas, food, paying someone to help in the booth, etc., you get to $1100-$1400 really fast.  I have to sell a ton of prints at $1.00 each to cover expense, since each print runs me half a buck to buy the paper and get the print done. Pomona would need to produce 2800 print sales to break me even.  Plus, I need to buy a used van to cart all this stuff around.  So, I have decided to pass on 2015 for doing indoor and outdoor displays, but 2016 I will give it one good shot for the full year to see what happens.  I can always go back to just walking the shows, handing out cards.

The CA Hot Rod Reunion, the GNRS in Pomona, and the NSRA event in Bakersfield will always find me milling around…….all three are great prospecting events.  I rate Pismo Beach the best outdoor event I attended for 2014, with the Orange County Cruise For The Cure a close second.

I have pitched commercial shops to use my art as a way to thank customers for using their services by having me do the customer’s car up and the shop sends it off to them unannounced as a special thanks for using them instead of a competitor for services rendered.  Shops are finally doing that, and they say it creates incredible loyalty and repeat business.  Additionally, some shops that use other artists are finding they are lighting a match to their money by going elsewhere to have art done…..that’s how cheap my price is compared to the rest of the artists out there.  My persistence has paid off.  Shops I contacted a couple of years ago are coming forward and inquiring.

Use me to render cars from YOUR past, cars you admire, cars you wish you could own, cars you presently own, or to do up a rendering of a build you’re in the middle of and want to see what it would look like finished.  Heck, if you can accurately describe a concept car, I can render it for you…..maybe even something that will never get built but you can dream it up.  It might just end up in a magazine some day.

I check my email twice a day, 7 days a week, so connect with me.  I am totally worthless to you unless you use my services, and you KNOW my prices on selling prints and on doing the art up are the lowest prices on the planet.  One rating service has me noted as the most-visited automotive art site world-wide, so I must be doing something right !!  And my success comes down to you, the ones who have used my art services, ordered prints, or simply told your friends about me.  THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.

RICK  WILSON

www.rickwilsoncustomcarart.com   and   www.dragracingartprints.com