Meet Pablo Franchi, a passionate artist, mechanical technician and architect; who started drawing when he was still in high school and uses his skill to sketch motorcycles. He always loved engines and still to this day; enjoys the smell of engines, the grease on his hands and the satisfaction of taking machines apart and putting them together.
If you ask him, his modest reply will be that he doesn’t keep a count of his sketches but on insisting, he casually reveals that he has over hundreds of them over the last nine years. He loves sketching on fabric paper and he very much loves the old-school form of art. His technique is admirable and he doesn’t like to erase anything, no matter what. He keeps the lines as they are to show the evolution of his sketch. Pablo also likes working on oil pastels, trying faithfully to recreate motorcycles but adding his own ‘artists interpretation’ to every piece. His favorite type of motorcycle to draw are naked bikes. Somehow it feels more fulfilling to him to draw the pieces of machinery, pipes, joints, etc. The hardest to draw he says are the motorcycles without details, which require a lot of highlights and shadows to give it depth and perspective.
For Pablo, the time to create a sketch varies depending on the size. A 30X40cm sketch usually takes two days, but a 100x70cm piece takes about two to three weeks. Pablo also undertakes paid work and calls himself lucky for not having anyone complain about his work so far. There is a sense of honest pride in his claim of calling his clients very satisfied customers. Many of them have returned to buy his work as a gift for their friends. In fact, many of his commissions are by wives wanting to gift them to their husbands.
We love his work and had the pleasure of meeting Pablo in the UAE recently. He is a true gentleman and a talented artist.
