Artist inspired by love of cycling

The Tour of Britain will make a welcome return to Yorkshire this year. And no one is more pleased than Harrogate artist and cyclist Martin Procter who has had his work featured in the prestigious cycling magazine Rouleur. Sally Clifford meets him. Main pictures by Simon Hulme.
Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured  at his home at Harrogate...Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured  at his home at Harrogate...
Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured at his home at Harrogate...

There’s a synergy between creativity and cycling. Freedom, independence and being surrounded by inspiration as you pedal forth in fresh air is the perfect ambiance for thinking. For Martin Procter, creativity has been his life’s work, and he has no intention of stopping. He is content to go with the flow “until my eyes give up and my hands give out,” he says, nonchalantly.

Martin developed a love and flair for art as a young boy and carried it through his life,

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eventually combining hobby and profession working on advertisements initially in the creative services department at The Yorkshire Post, in Leeds, and as studio head at The Huddersfield Examiner, before returning to Leeds to teach graphics at Jacob Kramer College, now Leeds Arts University.

Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with his Journals at his home at HarrogateArtist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with his Journals at his home at Harrogate
Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with his Journals at his home at Harrogate

After leaving the former Leeds Modern School, he had hoped to study art at college. “To study to become a commercial artist not only did you have to have a portfolio of work, you also had to have a glowing letter from your headmaster and I had been caught smoking in the school’s cycle shed at the time so I didn’t get in,” muses Martin, the irony being that he did end up at the college – teaching there many years later before setting up his own studio 30 years ago.

Cycling came along during his teenage years. “I started riding road bikes and have done throughout my life. I had a period when my children were young when I gave it up for a while. I started again seriously in 2006 and I’ve been cycling ever since,” he says.

Over the years he has been involved in competitive cycling, road racing, cyclo cross and sportives, but it is a purely a pastime these days. “My cycling’s for pleasure now, but in my younger days I did compete in time trials, some amateur road racing and the occasional cyclo cross race. Over the last 10 years, I’ve taken part in quite a number of sportives.”

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And the appeal? “It’s the freedom, the independence, being able to go where you like and the fitness aspect that attracted me to it – and the camaraderie of being in a cycling club, being able to get out and breathe good Yorkshire air.”

Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with cyclesArtist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with cycles
Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with cycles

Martin joined the Cappuccino Cycling Club, a drop-bar road cycling club based in his home town of Harrogate, in 2010 shortly after it set up. Membership has grown over the years, and the club now has around 200 riders.

Predominantly, the increase in popularity has been prompted by high-profile cycle races arriving in the region. In 2014, the 101st edition of Tour de France Grand Départ was staged in Yorkshire, and in 2019 the UCI Road World Championships were held in Harrogate.

Recently it was announced that the Tour of Britain, the UK’s most prestigious cycle race, is returning to Yorkshire later this year. Stage three will take the riders through the North-East and Sunderland, with the peloton heading to Redcar, Cleveland and North Yorkshire for the fourth stage on September 7.

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“Yorkshire has always been big into cycling anyway, but I think the Tour de France and the World Championships that came to Harrogate definitely boosted interest in it,” adds Martin.

Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with his Journals at his home at HarrogateArtist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with his Journals at his home at Harrogate
Artist and Cyclist Martin Procter pictured with his Journals at his home at Harrogate

Electric bikes are growing in popularity too, which Martin thinks might be to do with the lie of the land in Yorkshire. “People are getting interested in electric bikes. It’s a lot easier to get up the hills!”

Humour is a common theme among his work. Over the years he has produced artwork for high- calibre clients including Rouleur. The opportunity to become a contributing illustrator to the magazine came through the illustrated cycling journals he produced about the Cappuccino Cycling Club.

Martin started them to keep a record of the rides the club’s members embarked on, documenting details and humorous anecdotes along the way in words and illustrations.

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“I wanted to keep a record of each of the rides so I could relive the routes I was doing. There is a description of the route itself, which one of my bike collection I was riding, how many miles we went etc.

One of Martin's printsOne of Martin's prints
One of Martin's prints

“I used to do one journal each year – there would be over 100 entries per year recording the happenings on the ride, and often there was a humorous aspect to it, not just pictures of the Yorkshire Dales, more cartoony in a way.”

Some of the pages of Martin’s journals appeared in Rouleur in 2014 as part of the publicity for the Tour de France’s visit to the region. This led to him being invited to design the Tour de France cover for the prestigious magazine – a highlight of his career.

In 2017 Google UK asked him to illustrate and produce an art print to give to the 70 riders taking part in its annual invitational Cycle Sportive. The A2 print with each rider’s portrait featured their individual bike, helmet and shoe colour.

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“I sourced details of each of the riders and put an art print together. It was given to them as a keepsake,” says Martin.

His work has also been showcased in public and private art galleries, including the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate, South Square Gallery in Bradford and the British Embassy in Paris.

Beetle//Beatles, a quirky and colourful collection of more than 100 illustrations of beetles, each depicting one of the Fab Four’s songs, is among his creative output. An insect with false teeth body depicting When I’m 64 and Penny Lane, a beetle with an open wing span of a penny coin, are just two examples.

Martin is now working on a project entitled Sale Room depicting 26 famous artists, among them Bradford-born David Hockney, Banksy and Van Gogh, who Martin has portrayed in pen, ink and origami creating a 3D effect.

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“I’ve been working on them for about eight months, and I hope to show them eventually because I think they are the sort of imagery that would appeal to a wide range of people. They are accessible and I haven’t seen this mixture of materials, pen, ink, pencil combined with origami before,” adds Martin, who is always on the look-out for new ideas.

During the coronavirus lockdown, he spent hours planning and making different headwear art to entertain his grandchildren on his daily bike rides that went past their home. “During the first Covid lockdown, every day for two months I produced a different piece of headwear and cycled past my grandchildren’s house wearing them,” he says.

A toucan, a lockdown soup tin, a “real can of worms” and a speed camera were four of the 36 quirky creations that he sported during the rides he embarked on as part of his permitted hour of exercise each day. “It kept me busy!” he says with a laugh.

You can’t stop creativity and Martin has no intentions of doing so. “I will never stop. Every day I spend at least two to three hours in the studio working on my current interest and it doesn’t feel like work to me. Fortunately I don’t rely on it for income, but it’s part of me. It is something I have done all my life and I can’t see me giving up.

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“There are certain aspects of my graphic design work I have put behind me now, but I will never retire from my life’s work which is producing art of one kind or another.”

Martinprocter.com. You can also find

Martin on Facebook and Instagram (procter.martin).

For more information about the

Cappuccino Cycling Club, visit cappuccinoclub.co.uk.