So what color is a red car anyway? This sounds like a silly question, but many artists confuse the actual color of an item with its perceived color. For example, if I were to ask you what color the sky is, you'd probably say blue because this is the color we most often perceive it to be. Early on in my career, I learned a valuable lesson from my friend Don Ashwood about color and what we perceive it to be. Don asked me one evening what colors I saw in the sky. I proudly listed the usual colors one would see in a sunset. Blue, lavender, pink, orange, yellow, a touch of gray, and some white. As I looked to him for his approval, he shook his head and asked, "What about the green?" I said, "Green, what green? There's no green in the sky!" As I looked up again, I realized that he was right. Sure enough, there it was, right between the blue and the yellow, right where you'd expect it to be. I had never seen green in the sky before that day�not because it hadn't been there, but because I never perceived that it could be. I learned a great lesson that day that affected not just my art, but the way I view the world. I learned to open my mind�and my eyes�to what is really in front of me and not what I may think it should be.

That was the day I learned to see. This step-by-step sequence is designed to shock you into learning to see by looking deeper into the reference photo or other object that you may be drawing from�beyond the perceived color and into the actual color.

1. I found a suitable reference photo of a Shelby A.C. Cobra and projected it onto a T-shirt using an opaque projector. To sketch the bodylines, I used a brown pencil so that the lines would disappear as the colors are applied over them in later steps. I used a 6B ebony pencil to sketch the wheels and darker areas for the same reason.	2. The sketch is further refined by hand, looking closely at the reference photo. The more accurate you are here the less guesswork you'll have to do later, and the better your final outcome will be.	3. I apply opaque black freehand as well as with freehand shields to all of the darkest areas. This is where many artists go wrong by applying black to areas that do not really contain black in the reference photo. Do yourself a favor here. If it's notblack on the reference photo, don't paint it black! It's just that simple. You must learn to see. Notice that there is no shading with black on any of the body panels.

4. Now for the shocking part. Even though the car in my reference photo is percieved to be red, upon closer inspetionI can see some violet undertones in some of the shadowed areas. So every shadow and reflection that appears to have violet undertones is painted violet, while paying close attention to the relative value of each shadow in the reference photo.	5. Along the side of the car and across the hood, reflections are painted in with light brown, again paying close attention to the original reference photo. At this point in the painting, we're about as far away fro red as we can get, and the customer who ordered this shirt is probably considering getting his money back! But it all comes together in the next step.

6. Transparent red is applied over tha previous violet amd brown, making sure to leave the white of the shirt as highlights where necessary.	7. Golden yellow and hot pink are applied as needed to the side and front of the car.

8. A touch of caribbean blue is shaded across the windshield, headlights, wheels, and chrome. Opaque white is then used extensively tobring out the highlights on the body, wheels, and exhaust. As a final touch, black is used to clean up any oversprayed areas on the wheels and fender wells.	9. And here is the finshed shirt with the background and graphics added! WCA