There are only a handful of scooter fanatics and artists who can capture the spirit of motorcycling. They include Scott Jacobs, who recreated the gracious lines of a Panhead, and David Uhl, who spent six months working with oil and canvas to create a scene of a World War II sailor returning home to greet a new Knucklehead and his woman. David Mann is another such artist, who for 30 years has captured the latest styles of custom scooters with acrylic paints. To that illustrious list we can now add Chris Kallas, who also manages to apply his motorcycling heart to the canvas.
We stumbled onto Chris? work at the recent Beach Ride in Ventura, Calif. He began drawing at age 4 with child-like subjects of monsters, dinosaurs, spaceships, Mercury capsules and WWI and WWII battle scenes with airplanes, ships and tanks.
Chris grew up in Southern California, where motorcyclingwas prevalent. His first ride was at age 10, when his dad let himride his brother’s mini-bike home. It was a bicycle-framed, lawnmower-powered, clutch less, push start, direct belt drive, solid rubber wheeled, no-brake suicide machine. His only other experience at the time was riding on the back ofhis uncle’s Suzuki 90. This uncle had a succession of bikes on which Chris would receive rides. While they were fun to ride on, Chris thought, ?When’s this guy going to get hip to a Harley??
