The Bicycle Film Festival is an annual, curated film festival focused on sharing a range of new bike films. Each festival offering is unique, and the films included are selected from submission and the final collection are then toured internationally to sell out crowds.
Brendt Barbur is the Founding Festival Director. He was inspired to create this event in 2001 after a traffic accident while cycling in New York City.
The Bicycle Film Festival is a platform to celebrate the bicycle through various forms of artistic expression, including music, art, and, notably, film and has significantly propelled the urban bike movement as well as promoting lesser-known types of bike riding.
Image: Bicycle Film Festival
This festival now spans 90 cities across the globe and the BFF has garnered a vast audience of over 1 million individuals. It has become one of the foremost art and cultural event advocating sustainability. The Bicycle Film Festival also has offshoot links with associated workshops, screenings, panel events, concert, food events and art exhibitions worldwide.
I really appreciate this event because it showcases new and original films that you cannot see anywhere else. the festival covers such a wide range of experiences, places and styles and it really gives you an insight into how important bicycles are to so many people. It is really a celebration of people, place and riding – it is affirming and heartwarming.
The Bicycle Film Festival’s YouTube channel is a testament to the range of interests, skills and quality of bike films being produced by enthusiasts. Here are a few of the offerings over the years:
As someone who delights in discovering artists who use bikes in their creations, I was delighted to stumble upon an Australian artist named Hilary Warren.
First, she’s an Australian female artist who, despite winning many awards, is not as well known her male counterparts. But that’s not what drew me to her work – it was the fact that two out of her five prints on the site featured a bicycle!
I also appreciate that Hilary is an older artist who only has two followers and few views of her work on this platform. As someone who values supporting and increasing the visibility of lesser known or underestimated individuals, I was more interested in Hilary’s work than the others listed.
I was also interested to Hilary uses work uses etching, which is not a common art medium – and certainly not one I have seen used in bike art very often at all.
I was also intrigued by Hilary’s artwork because it brought back memories of my time in Hoi An. I had the pleasure of cycling around the city and taking in the local atmosphere, and her prints captured that feeling so well. It was a delightful reminder of the happy days I spent exploring the city on two wheels and seeing exactly the kind of houses her work depicts.
Hilary’s choice to depict bicycles in the everyday life of Hoi An is significant because it serves as a reminder that bikes are utilized by diverse communities all over the world. It challenges the normative images and pervasive media representations that often only showcase white men as cyclists. By highlighting how people from all walks of life use bicycles in their daily routines, Hilary’s prints offer a much-needed reset from the limited and exclusionary messaging we often receive about cycling. It is refreshing to see such a representation showcasing a broader range of bike riding lifestyles, contexts and experiences.
In this collection, Hilary depicts everyday life in Hoi An, Vietnam, where bicycles are a staple of daily life. The way she captures the spirit of the city and how casually the bicycles wait outside people’s front doors at the ever-ready – is simple and meaningful.
It’s a testament to the way that bicycles are woven into the fabric of a community, becoming a vital part of the culture and identity of a place.
I like that her prints are understated and simple.
The sepia wash accentuates the nostalgic feeling of bygone years ..a time when every house had a bike ……. (*sigh*)…………..
Hilary Warren is a Canberra-based printmaker who began her art career after working in science. She obtained a PhD in Plant Biochemistry in 1970 and worked in Immunology until her retirement in 2014. She then turned her skills to printmaking, focusing on the Photopolymer Photogravure technique, in which she adapts her own photographs to create etched photopolymer plates. Warren has developed this skill through workshops with well-established Australian printmakers, and her hand-pulled prints are created using oil-based etching inks and Hahnemuhle paper.
Warren’s early work focused on images from her travels in Europe and Asia, but with travel limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she has started a series of botanical etchings using photographs taken in her own garden and at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. In other works, she explores still life, always emphasizing the use of light and shade to create a unique view of something ordinary.
Warren is committed to participating in the Australian and international printmaking community and finds inspiration in print exchanges, exhibitions held in Canberra by the Artists Society of Canberra and the Canberra Art Workshop, and prestigious art prizes, where she has been selected as a finalist in several. She is always eager to learn from others and continues to develop her skills through workshops and collaboration with other artists.
The annual Chicks in the Sticks event was coming up and I was registered. This year, I wanted to continue conversations about the unbearable whiteness of cycling and lack of support/inclusion of First Nations riders, decolonising MTB, celebrating First Nation experiences and better recognising First Nations connection to country at MTB events.
CITS is Queensland’s biggest, annual all-female 3hr Enduro mountain bike event. Those who know me know I like to bring the fun – so a theme bike and outfit was in order, but not anything mainstream.
Chicks in the Sticks – Annual All-female 3 hr Enduro Event
At this event, there is a big emphasis on fun, inclusion, and ‘giving it a go’, so there is lots of costumes and colour: – there is a profusion of ladybirds, bees, rainbow tutus, Where’s Wallys amongst the more ‘serious’ riders.
I wanted to continue the good vibes, but also raise awareness of First Nations experiences. But ‘Decolonise MTB’ was not the right approach for this event.
So I came up with an idea to promote First Nations experiences in a way that was positive and clear, but not confrontational. My idea consisted of a costume that was comfortable to ride it that matched a uniquely decorated bike highlighting my key theme.
To bring my vision to life, I enlisted the help of two incredible women to make my idea happen. A massive thank you to both Alison and Nix for their collaboration!
My Outfit
The outfit centred mainly on a custom-made T-shirt. This was the visually impactful piece and meant I could still ride safety and comfortably. Alison is a creative mate who I have collaborated with on a number of previous projects, including prepping for Bike Hack 19. Alison was integral in producing my T-shirt vision.
The T-shirt was a bright yellow and had connecting circles and indigenous artwork prints on the front and the words ‘celebrating’ over the same indigenous print panel on the back. I specifically chose ‘celebrating’ as a present verb (ie doing) and it was a positive message. The print was sourced from a First Nations art Collective (to support artists) and the other material (black spots and yellow T) were sourced from Opp Shops.
Nix is a proud Quandamooka woman who is highly creative. I had the idea of decorating my bike in a way that combined the approaches of my previous Art Bike Projects CONS_U_Me Blues with the Kids Bikes are Hard Work …but also it needed to be lightweight, snag-free, and still easy to ride during the event.
We used recycled clothes from Opp Shops to decorate the bike in the colours of the Australian Aboriginal flag (red, black, and yellow) by strapping the frame in red and black with yellow hanging tassels (emulating the flag’s yellow sun) in the middle.
We added a large ball under the seat in the Torres Strait Islander colors.
On the handlebars we had a hint of the theme colous for front-facing reference.
We then decorated the helmet to match.
See the stages of development below.
Archie ‘helping’
Before shot
frame wrapping
Torres Strait decoration
In-progress
helmet decoration
helmet test
It was a great project to collaborate with others and it ticked all the important boxes for me like being based on recycling and sustainable principles, increasing awareness for First Nation experiences, creating a new and original outfit to ride in, supporting the event by dressing up and bringing the good vibes, creating something we collectively made that was low-cost, sustainable, and low-tech, and I got to share quality creative time with people I admire.
A massive, big thank you to Alison and Nix – I love what we co-created!
In the next post, I’ll let you know how the event went.
Nina with Kenly Grey’s Wheel (2021). Image: Nina Ginsberg
This month is Brisbane Festival month.
So this week, I headed down to Metro Arts to check out a wholly bike-inspired, free art exhibition called The Mechanics of Adaptation.
The exhibition was well laid out and had a variety of materials, forms, and mediums across two galleries. Each work was given sufficient space so viewers could walk around the installations and see them from different angles.
I decided to wander through the show first to get a sense of the artworks. It was interesting to see the different techniques used to fuse, fix and set each of the works together. It felt like these were not super technical pieces, which made them more relatable because it felt like anyone could have a go constructing some of these works.
After my initial look around, I grabbed a handout of the exhibition (see details below) which explained a little more of the context behind the exhibition.
The handout and the necessary artist’s name/title/year posted on the walls next to exhibits were the only pieces of info provided at the exhibition.
When I got home and looked for more online, there were heaps of other interesting info about this project! Why wasn’t this extra info promoted at the exhibition?
And the passing mention in the exhibition handout about the ‘collaboration’ was actually a vital part of the whole artistic process and overall project.
The collaboration was the part I found most interesting about this whole project, yet at the exhibition, there was very little info about it.
Online, I found a catalog that gave more details about the project (see below).
This catalog outlines the background and details the collaboration with Traction and Sycamore, which I think is where the real art story is at – see here!
Having established artists running a series of workshops with youths at risk (Traction) and young people living with Autism (Sycamore) to teach artistic and technical using bikes is a brilliant idea – and I love that the final works were being exhibited as part of the Brisbane Arts Festival.
As a visitor to this exhibition, I felt this key aspect of the project was missing.
I would have loved to have seen better recognition/focus in the exhibition about the involvement of the youth groups.
Even so, it was awesome to see more bike art being supported and showcased.
If you are in Brisbane and have the interest -consider popping in and checking it out!
More bike projects and art exhibitions like this one, please!
Deucamp’s artwork changed the course of contemporary art by elevating ordinary objects to the status of art. In 2021, after 10 successful years and four million trips, the Brisbane CityCycle program is ending.
With access to decommissioned bicycles provided by JDDecaux, Metro Arts commission and five local artists to produce new work inspired by these now-defunct bicycles.
This work captures the emerging world of ever-accumulating industrially produced items and the potential for found materials to be incorporated into artworks whilst also inviting a playful attitude into the rarefied context of art galleries.
Today, bicycles also represent the urgency of the need for environmental awareness and sustainability.
Within this context, the artists’ use of the decommission City Cycle bicycles reflects the opportunity for artistic experimentation that connects histories of art to environmental sustainability.
As we move into holiday mode, my thoughts turn to long, lazy afternoons enjoying the rich, inviting, creativity of a thriving bike community. I was nostalgic for a local event something along the lines of Bespoke City. Bespoke City was a super special, one-night-only art and design event held in Sydney some years back. A wonderful reminder of what can be achieved when creative minds come together. For those who missed it, this post explains the event. Here’s to hoping for more bespoke events like this! Enjoy. NG.
Bespoke City. Image: UNSW Newsroom
The Bespoke City event was put on to celebrate a new generation of designers, makers, technologists and innovators who had teamed up with artists to re-imagine Sydney’s streets from the perspective of the cyclist.
Brilliant! There should be more city events like this!
The Bespoke City festival included a series of bike-inspired installations, projections, interactive artworks, unique sculptures, videos, kinetic artworks, demonstrations, and stalls. Curated by Laura Fisher and Sabrina Sokalik, Bespoke City invited audiences to reimagine Sydney’s urban environment.
It was held in a new community space in the heart of Oxford Street. This was the first time the event had ‘spilled out into the streets’ from the UNSW Art & Design Courtyard and Galleries.
Bicycles were central to all the artworks.
Bikes were used to generate light, colour, sound and energy, while other artworks used them as a metaphor for the city itself – reminding us that urban spaces can be deconstructed and remade and that we are all implicated in the politics of public space.
A key aim of the event was to spotlight the bicycle as a humble but brilliant piece of technology, and to share a vision of the city as open to being hacked, remapped and remade.
Bespoke City was part of UNSW Galleries’ First Fridays program, in which the Galleries stayed open late on the first Friday of each month to host lively events engaging in contemporary art and culture.
What a great idea! More, please!
Laura Fisher said Bespoke City appealed to everyone: “This is one for the makers, the pedalers and the whole family.”
Some of the more than 20 Bespoke City artworks, workshops and installations, included:
Pedal powered light mural – Climb on and peel back the layers of the city. See Sydney in flux as your pedalling efforts produce variations in light, colour and space. Artists: Jonathon Bolitho, Jeong Greaves, Jobe Williams, Mackenzie Nix.
Autonomous painting machine – A robot-painter that tracks human movements to create curious images, prompting viewers to think about how machine intelligence is influencing our lives. Artist: Jeffrey Wood
Bicycles that make music – Create a slow groove or some fast electronic beats as you collaborate with other riders to fill the campus with a unique and evolving sound piece. Artists: Milkcrate Events.
Microbiology in the urban wild – Examine the city at the molecular level using a bike-powered laboratory created by the first Citizen Scientist molecular biology lab. Artists: BioFoundry
A virtual ride from Paddington to Rozelle – ‘Veloscape’ is an immersive video work in which your pedalling takes you on a traverse of the city. Artists: Volker Kuchelmeister and Laura Fisher
Giant data visualisation – Watch the ebb and flow of rider movements around Sydney, with a specially commissioned work inspired by the City’s cycling data. Artist: Hanley Weng & Xavier Ho.
There were also lots of other things to do, like get a free bicycle tune-up, join the guerrilla knitters, make some custom reflective gear or get some food from one of the Cargo Bike businesses and pop up stalls.
Yes – a wonderful event that ticks so many boxes: artistic, fun, high community engagement, questioning urban design and mobility, bike-focused, collaborative, free, public event…(*sigh*).
I’d love to see more events like this during the holidays.
Ti wouldn’t be too much of a stretch given that most major cities already have some kind of public, night-time bike events like Ride the Night Brisbane or some kind of innovative bike infrastructure like the Starry Night Bike Path.
So let’s showcase more art and design collaborative artworks on two wheels!
In this video (see below), we meet Evan Kay, his wife Ella, their dog, their bikes, and the railbike project they designed to use on rail trails to access more nature and adventure.
Evan and Ella ride MTB – a lot. Like most other MTBers, off-trail riding is their passion and purpose. They like to explore remote places and go on adventure rides.
Evan is an engineer who grew up loving farming, fishing, and family – and combining these passions with his technical skills is at the heart of this project.
Evan and Ella live in Vermont (New England, USA) where there are several disused railroad lines. There are many similar remnants of the old train networks across the USA, and seeing these got Evan curious about how to use these railroads to reimagine family adventures.
The challenge was to combine his technical skills with his love of outdoor MTB adventures. Inspired by seeing other riders adapting their bikes for railroads, Evan and Ella started working on ideas to use the rail to reach ever further and remote locations.
In this video, we see the evolution of their project to adapt their MTB bikes to ‘ride the rails’ – or railbiking as it is known.
A central aim of this project was to experience nature using active pedal power generated through their mountain bikes.
The initial design was based on three main needs. First, they wanted to use their mountain bikes as the drive mechanism. It also needed to be stable and safe. And third, they wanted both riders to be parallel (side-by-side) and not front-to-back (as in tandem like other designs). There is a platform between them that carries all their cargo and the dog with minimal effort.
I was really inspired by Evan’s ingenuity and skills in being able to utilise what is already there, yet often overlooked (in this case the abandoned rail trails) as an opportunity to extend their bike riding adventures – as well as creatively self-manufacturing an adaptive MTB frame that is unique and purposeful. So inspiring to see a design makes it easier and more comfortable to go further, for longer on a bike.
I also love that the whole family can literally ‘go along for the ride’ together!
Gives a new meaning to ‘off-(t)rail mountain biking’!
This week, I found an article written by Deb West (Adjunct Instructor at The Art of Education University). Deb is a retired art teacher of 25 years experience whose motto is ‘Together we ART better!’ The article I read was Why bike studies are the perfect end-of-the-year project (see below).
..and I loved how thoughtfully she had combined bikes, art, and education!
In her lesson (see below), Deb outlines an art lesson that uses various techniques focused on bikes as ‘the subject’. She also explains the reasoning for each step, ideas for extensions and how to ‘level up’ this activity.
As a teacher, I appreciate her generous ideas, resources, and suggestions – it is all outlined clearly with samples of students work-in-develop to illustrate each technique. So helpful!
Regardless of whether you are an art teacher or not, if you are teaching kids at school, home, or yourself, this is a great activity for everyone.
Why Bike Studies are The Perfect End-of-the-Year Project
You know you have a great lesson when you keep coming back to it, refining it, and changing it up year after year. That’s how I feel about this bike study drawing lesson. I’m always excited to introduce it to my students, and they always anticipate doing it!
Like many good lessons, this lesson is challenging. I save it for the end of the semester in my Art II class, so I know they are well-prepared.
Why bikes?
There are 3 main reasons I like to have my students draw bikes.
It helps develop their skills even further. Although my students draw from life daily, drawing bikes takes their skills to the next level. There are so many details to observe and capture.
The assignment can help build students’ portfolios. Some art colleges require bike studies as part of their application process.
It can lead to scholarships. This lesson can also be a great way to get your students to create a scholarship-winning piece because, let’s face it, drawing bikes is tough! Students have to look, measure, and be exact. And, they have to pay attention to details that often go unnoticed.
The Lesson
I’ve been teaching this bike study lesson for ten years. I’d love to share how to get started as well as some ways to take the lesson to the next level.
Step 1: Contour Studies
I always have students start with several contour studies of a bicycle. These are quick sketches to loosen them up and calm their artistic nerves.
Step 2: Graphite
Once the contour studies are complete, students begin focusing on specific areas of the bike and draw with graphite in full detail. We discuss how the light reflects off the metal and how to capture that reflection through drawing.
Step 4: Charcoal
Finally, students finish up their study by working in charcoal.
Throughout the first four steps, students are encouraged to take photos of the bike. They draw both from life and their photos. This method gives them the ability to evaluate the details needed to make these drawings believable.
Step 5: Putting It All Together
The most fun part of this lesson comes right when they think they are finished. This is when I give them three days to create a composition using their bike studies creatively. I set the art room up as an open studio. Students can create reliefs, collages, and add mixed media into their negative space. Of course, throughout this process, they are considering how these additions will help emphasize the bike work. These works remain black and white and are always a big hit when we display them!
Taking it to the Next Level
You could amp up this lesson in so many ways. This past year, instead of having just one bicycle, I added a few more. Our setup even included an antique Radio Flyer tricycle I found at a local thrift shop.
In addition, I had a colleague visiting from overseas who helped me brainstorm another way to make this lesson even more engaging. Dr. Lexi Lasczik is a mark-making master artist who came to my school to work with my students for several days.
Her idea was to have students use their whole bodies as they drew quick studies of the bike on 24” x 36” drawing paper in sixteen timed sections. We challenged students to complete studies in ten to thirty-second bursts. We even made them switch hands!
It was beyond exciting to watch the students! They were so energized. After the first few studies, they lost their fear of failure and began to realize this exercise could be an amazing learning tool!
Once they completed the first sixteen timed studies, they turned their papers over and did another sixteen, but this time they used ink and sticks and again, the room palpitated with artistic excitement!
In this case, for the final project, students took their three detailed studies as well as their mark-making studies and combined them into a new composition.
I also had them incorporate one color into their piece, and the results were spectacular!
It’s always fun to see how the learning process shows up in the final work. I believe it’s learning at its best!
What objects do you use to teach your students still life?
Have you used bikes to teach your students to draw?
I am a community bike rider and researcher living in Brisbane Australia. I live with a gorgeous kelpie named Zoe and a bike named Kissime and we have spent many happy years riding bikes together.
I have a blog and we regularly post about dogs and bikes, see for example:
We recently came across your Etsy page and saw your handmade dog-and-bike plates.
And we love them!
You have a good selection of dog breeds including Daschunds, Retrievers, Boston Terriers and Dalmatians. Some of them have hats or scarves and they ride different bikes.
Very savvy to have different sizes and shapes of plates, platters and serving trays, too.
We love your other bike riding animals – especially the elephants, flying pigs and octopus!
Zoe was delighted to hear customers can custom order for a ‘girl dog’ too – but wondered how that might change the illustration.
Congrats on your impressive range of other designs including, nautical and underwater themes, butterflies, farm animals, florals and botanicals, Alice in Wonderland, heaps of land and sea animals, insects, anatomical body parts and metrics, skulls, and of course bees!
We appreciate the effort you take in hand making each plate in your US studio – and that you have created endearing designs that are quirky and whimsical and have that ‘ye olde timey’/vintage style about them.
On your Esty site, it says your bike-and-dog plates are: artful, fabulously glossy, and highly durable range of kitchenware made out of ThermoSaf® Composite Polymer, which is also:
Microwave-safe.
Melamine-free.
BPA-Free.
Dishwasher-safe.
Formaldehyde-free.
Break-resistant.
FDA approved for food contact and oven-safe to 300 degrees (45 min. or less).
We saw you do request orders too: awesome for custom matching for decor, colour, bike and dog breed preference, use and style.
Will kelpies be added to add to the range? Zoe is happy to help if needed!
We know there are many people who love riding bikes and love dogs – thanks for offering such beautiful, original products that celebrate our combined passions!
We wish you all the very best for you and your business.
Keep up the amazing platefuls of bikes and dogs!
Warm regards, tail wags, and muddy trails.
Zoe the dog, Kissime the bike, and Nina the rider.
I am recovering from a 3-week intensive marking bender.
My eyes are itchy, my lower back aches and my approachablity is incendiary.
A tight uni turnaround to mark 28 x 6,000-word research reports and 28 x 2,000-word workplace assessments (both Masters level and worth 80% of the total course!) PLUS 21 x 3,300-word undergrad mixed-method research reports (worth 50%). Epic!
I am grateful for the work. Like many others, I’ve had no uni teaching or lecturing for Trimeter 1 due to university COVID response measures. No sessional work, only marking. Thank goodness for my educational consultancy. Tough times.
The students worked hard and so did I. There’s a lot riding on these assessments – and I take the job seriously. I’m not the kind of academic who breezes over assessments and gives 3 comments like: good or need more work here and interesting point– what the hell kind of feedback is that? So unhelpful! I am NOT that kind of marker – I hate that shit! So, I put in the work and gave each assessment my full attention.
So in a similar mood for @Artcrank, I looked for a new source to lift the spirits and remind me of the creative playfulness betwixt bikes, community, action, spaces, materiality, bodies and brazenness.
Here is a 100-word worlding I wrote after seeing @bikeart.gallery for the first time.
I love bikeart, too.
Eyes itchy, shoulders aching and approachablity is incendiary. Time for bike art. @bikeart.gallery – newly discovered on Instagram. Stickers, prints, icons, charcoals, photos, cartoons, designs, and paper cuts. I love bikes and I love art, too. Some super progressive bikeart, others not so. Hypersexualized disembodied females with-on bikes (really? still?!) – cringe-worthy. Elsewhere, I marvel at super spunky rider couples, surreal adventure rides, fantastical bici creaturing, and cheeky postmodern velo classical reinterpretations. A few memes. Close-ups, portraits and movement. Audaciousness. Lego, flames, tattoos, air travel, and (Fr)eddie Merxc(ury). @jctdesign’s spontaneous napkin doodle ‘unplug and ride your bike’ is good advice.
Image: @andy_warlord
Image: Rachel aka @rachpetru!
Image: IG @artbike.gallery
Image: @bikeart.gallery
Image: @AlvaroLopeMoralesQuevado
Image: @tadapota
Image: @bikeart.gallery
Image: @bazasportpenza
Image: @josekoebrugge
Image: @abphart
Image:
Image: @hello_mrbaker
Image: IG @artbike.gallery
Image: @daemoncycling
Image: @kosuke_masuda_5
Image: @lbbjkt
Image: @bikeart.gallery
Image: @eila_kai
Image: @davidlgill
Image: “Organic Growth” art installation (umbrellas & bicycle tires) by @izaskunchinchilla (account not longer exists) at Govenor’s Island.
In this post, we are looking at a very specific subset of bike tattoo and that is – bike tattoos that have specifically detailed colour or design included in the bike wheels … or what I call … ‘wheelie’ specific bike tattoos.
I scoured the internet and rolled through hundreds of cool, funny and (at times) questionable bike tattoos to find 5 solid representations of tattoos that have details in the bike wheels as their central focus.
In each of these cases, colour and form was used as the central cohesive design feature.
Let’s have a look…
@Mountainbike on Pintrest
@Mountainbike on Pintrest
The first two tattoos (see above) have a similar aesthetic which uses a sunset or landscape scenery as the key motif. I put two versions of this design here as the gentle difference in colours has quite a significant impact on the ‘feel’ of the overall tattoo, yet the symbolism is equally clear and meaningful. Having mountains on the side and a river or track running through the middle helps accentuate the perspective of the ‘never-ending great outdoors’ so desired by bike riders. This iconography is made all the more striking when contained within the circular frame of both wheels which (also) forms a simple black bike frame silhouette with no background. Interestingly, I sourced both these tattoos from the same location, which makes me wonder if this specific design is ‘a mountainbike thang.’
Image: Bicycling.com
The third tattoo (above) is more of a whimsical, flowery bike design interpretation made more impactful with the use of the two strongly contrasting and complementary colors of blue and red. This is an unsual and particular tattoo that stands out for its unconventional and creative design – a bold choice for a permanent tattoo!
Scott Schmidt on Pintrest
The fourth tattoo (above) is a calf single wheel tattoo highlighted by the distinctive red and black diagrammatic colouring that really makes it pop. This tattoo is dramatic in its almost tribal-style patterning. The composition is controlled, yet creative with clean and authoritative lines that clearly accentuate the ‘wheel-ness’ of the design. The strong outlines are offset by the red 5-petaled flower at the centre of the wheel, hinting to the softer interior of the ‘hard-wheeled’ rider-owner who is bold enough to wear it.
Image: Next luxury
The last tattoo (above) looks like it takes its cue from graphic design using both colour, texture and geometric patterning to good effect. On closer inspection, it almost looks like the texture of puff paints (it did make me second guess whether this was a ‘real’ tattoo) or maybe the tattoo had just been applied and was brand new, hence the raised (or skin reactive) beveling of work.
Tattoos – and more specifically bike tattoos – are not for everyone. But there are many people who love riding and want to celebrate, share and commemorate bikes with tattoos. And these ‘wheelie’ bike tattoos are just one example of people do this.
Which begs the question:
If you were to get a bike tattoo, where and what would you get?
