Acquerello su Cartoncino A4 rigido.

There are motorcycles that are not painted: they are evoked. The Laverda 750 is one of those. I painted it in watercolor not so much to immortalize the shape, but to let that roar shine through that still today, if I close my eyes, resonates inside me like a long and full note.
The choice of watercolor is not accidental. I wanted to use a light and fluid medium to describe a heavy and concrete machine. The bright and vibrant Laverda red moves on the paper with the same elegance with which the twin-cylinder touches 7000 rpm. The chrome is only suggested, never shouted. I prefer to leave room for the imagination, as the advertising posters of the past did.
The number 88 on the tail is a tribute to all those racing motorcycles that I dreamed of as a boy — the ones you saw only once, perhaps passing through town for an uphill race, and then remained in your memory for years.
I tried to keep the drawing clean, balancing the technical detail with a certain pictorial freedom: the bike is faithful in its proportions, but not caged in workshop manual lines. After all, that's not how we remember them: dream bikes are always a bit blurry, but full of personality.
This Laverda is part of a small series of watercolors that I'm making dedicated to historic and racing bikes. Gilera, Yamaha, Cagiva models are also part of it — each with its own soul, its own character. If you too have a special bike in your heart (or in your garage), I can paint it for you: on canvas, on paper, or on a ceramic support, as you prefer. All it takes is a message... and an engine to tell.

Added Jan 20, 2020

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