For GCSE Art & Design I once had to paint a canvas full of things representing rock and roll. To add life to the piece I managed to glue a vinyl and some drumsticks to the page, firm in the belief that this exhibition of devil-may-care insurrectionism would turn the art establishment on its head. This might help to indicate why when I heard about an artist who made his living by driving toy cars across a canvas I was more surprised than most.

Presumably at GCSE level Ian Cook was expounding the virtues of Rothko and making sculptures out of cigarettes. Now twenty-six, the Brummie’s inventive, perhaps facetious, qualities haven’t been eroded: “I came up with the idea of using radio-controlled cars to paint when my girlfriend bought me a radio-controlled car for Christmas and told me not get any paint on it.” Ex-girlfriend that is.

Cook, who studied at the Winchester School of Art, has been developing his craft for two years. “I started off just dipping the tyres in paint and doing circles, then shapes, and it grew from that. The first real image I did was Pudsey Bear for the BBC; from there I went into portraits, logos and eventually cars.”

Ian calls this style PopBang Colour, and for the last eighteen months it has found a welcoming home in the world of motorsport. When I met Ian he was painting cars at the Rally Great Britain in Cardiff; within a week he was in Abu Dhabi for the city’s first Grand Prix.

When asked why the sport has been so forthcoming with commissions: “Mostly I think people like watching the paintings being made. It’s like a kind of street art where you see the image being produced before you; I guess it’s essentially a performance!”

Ian’s greatest performance came last October when he was commissioned by Reebok to paint a portrait of Lewis Hamilton to be hung on the Tower Bridge in London. “I was approached by them to do a project so I went to London to discuss it and we came up with the idea of using my style of painting to create a 12m high portrait of Lewis Hamilton in the run-up to the Brazilian Grand Prix.”

“The whole thing was very surreal. I was given a week to create it, I worked fourteen hours a day for seven days and at no point was a brush used.” The media interest in the painting surprised even Ian’s sponsors, as TV crews from Poland, Germany, Italy and the U.S. descended on Tower Bridge to cover the unravelling, which appeared in CNN’s bulletin just after the Superbowl.

“It certainly opened up doors for me,” Ian admits, “When I first started this artwork I was teaching. It meant I could go full time. Had you said to me back then that I’d be flown out to Abu Dhabi to create paintings for their first Grand Prix I’d have laughed at you. But my proudest achievement was being able to afford my new van!”

Cook is now thinking on a more human-sized scale for his art. “When I paint I generally get paint all over my clothes, and its crazy just how many people want a T-shirt with paint splattered across it, so that’s an area I’m looking into. I’m already helping to design footwear with a company and Reebok have been in touch about clothing.”

Cook’s success is well-deserved, with his paintings representing motion and energy better than anything I’ve seen. But who knows - I got a C in art.