Silver Clouds: The 1934 Grand Prix Season
It was inevitable that my love of drawing would one day lead me to express artistically my passion for Grand Prix racing history.
In researching the racing history of the 1930s, I came across material that captivated me. There were many stories about technological developments, about political manoeuvres, about rivalries between racecar teams, and, above all, about drivers.
In particular, the 1934 Grand Prix season formed a turning point in Grand Prix racing history. Disrupting the ebb and flow of the established racing teams’ fortunes and successes, two new, powerful teams suddenly joined the fray of the 1934 season.
With the idea of passing on these great stories, I decided to write a little book and provide an illustrated overview of the season, with a focus on the 9 key races and 12 of the people who were part of it.
After months of research, writing, creating art, design, layout and finally, assembly and packaging, my little less than perfect book on the 1934 Grand Prix season is ready and available. It’s published as a limited edition of only 50 copies, signed, numbered and custom wrapped.
It’s been a stimulating exercise of tying it all together, visually and narratively.
I hope that the story, the art and the package will offer the reader a memorable experience.
Each has a wrap-around slip-cover, which is see-through vellum which shows the archival Giclee cover art on German watercolor paper, front and back. I cut a small window in the vellum to expose a small portion of the front cover art.
I'm hand-assembling each one, binding the pages with ribbon, and custom-packaging them in silver-coloured paper; the edition is limited to 50, numbered and signed. Though I'm not advertising it, I'm also including a little package of "cigarette" cards of the 12 pen & ink portraits I did for the book, a nice little surprise for the recipient, exclusive to the book.
That's cool packaging!
Below are two pages in a ordinary perspective:
Here is an excerpt of the review of Paul's book by Harlo at the Chicane Blog:
It’s almost not fair to refer to Paul Chenard’s “Silver Clouds: The 1934 Grand Prix Season” as a book. A book is generally thought of as a consumer product. Yes, a book can be artfully considered, beautifully designed, lovingly written and illustrated, but when it comes down to it, you think of a book as a mass-produced item: bought, thumbed through, and forgotten on a shelf.
Like a book, Paul’s project, is lovingly researched and written. The design has been carefully measured, the illustrations (oh the illustrations!) are magnificent. But here is where the similarities to a mere book end. This is an art piece. There’s really no other way to think of it. It has all the hallmarks of a hand-crafted, meticulously assembled gallery item. The fact that you can turn from page to page and admire the beautifully reproduced illustrations and pore over the charming summaries of the races and events of the 1934 Grand Prix season is just added benefit.
In short, I love it. It’s a remarkably beautiful art piece, a passionately written and magnificently crafted primer to the Grand Prix season of 1934