Mods and Rockers, Walmgate Bar, York by YorkArtist's resident artist Mark Braithwaite
An addition to Mark's A Touch of Red Series - a fabulous view of York's Walmgate Bar, with a splash of colour from two wheeled vehicles in all shapes and sizes; motorbikes, scooters, mopeds. How many different ones can you name?
Mark tells us:
"This is a picture which has been years in the making! I’ve been wondering for years how to draw Walmgate Bar in York, its location on a busy junction does not lend itself to an easy composition.
"Mods and Rockers solved this problem for me as bikes and scooters don’t obstruct the stonework like a vehicle would. When I was a lad everyone in my school was a Mod - I had a black Harrington jacket and mod badges and patches on it. It was more or less a daily threat from the bigger kids who would grab you and question if you were a mod or a rocker with a fist at the ready! Luckily we were all mods.
"The first album I bought was Madness Absolutely; I even holidayed in every year in Margate during the riots which was quite an eye opener for a young lad! I also managed to crash my step mother's scooter into the garden wall… never allowed to touch it again!
"When I was 15 that all changed and I switched sides and became a rocker! I was the singer in three rock bands and even met metal legend Dave Mustaine, and drank tequila with Mr Wright of Terrorvision fame - you'll remember the song if you were ever had the radio on in the mid 1990s. One of the band members made me sit on the back of their chopper bike with extended forks, whilst holding 3 cases of beer and leaning around the corners with nothing but beer to hold on to was quite the most terrifying moment of my life to that point! So I’ve been a mod and a rocker."
Mark drew the original in graphite pencil with Faber Castell Polychromos colour detailing. The prints are produced using the giclée printing process on paper.
The print is available in three sizes, all of which will fit standard metric frame sizes, and also presented in a choice of mounts - a single antique white mount, or a double mount with a white over black mount.
240x300mm mounted print, presented in an antique white mount
Double mounted, with a white top mount and black undermount
300x400 mm mounted print presented in an antique white mount
400x500mm mounted print, presented in antique white mount
Double mounted, with a white top mount and black undermount
© The Artist
