S T Y L E

Derek Hynd, Gerry Lopez, Jay Adams. The final word.

Where It´s At

This sign in El Salvador seemed to me to sum up modern Central America past and present pretty succintly.

JOURNAL-ISM II

Some more pages from the magical mystery tour...

Street Treat

Two pieces of outdoor art i saw somewhere and liked, will try and find out who they´re by....

Auto-asphyxiation is for Dummies

spotted in oaxaca city

Care label

Spot the unintentional irony:

JOURNAL-ISM

I kept a little journal for writing and doodles during our month travelling around Central America, here´s a few pages:

(cool lyrics from a Steely Dan song, we were in a pub in Guatemala where they let you write and draw on the walls, so i wrote this up with a few doodles too)

S t i c k l e r s

Great sticker design from a little Mexican skateshop, love the way it just looks like an abstract squiggle till you see the Lucha Libre masked face.

Spotted in the street on a big old space wagon.

It says: NOBODY LOVES ME BECAUSE I´M A BASTARD

fair enough.

SOMEWHERE NEAR TAPACHULA

OK, this is just a quick and very overdue mention about this film and the people in it. I'll do a proper story on our recent visit and an inspiring day of surf n' soccer at the Mision Mexico Childrens Refuge as soon as i can process the gathered words and pixels.

In the meantime please check out the Somewhere Near Tapachula website for more info on the project, the film trailer and to support this amazing thing.....



I just can't say enough good things about this place, great to see it's already won an award at the Yallingup Surfilm Fest and has been mentioned by none other than Mick Fanning on his Twitter...

KOOKS ONLY

The wonderful and long-anticpated KOOK has been released into the wild (or maybe from the wild?) and looks like it was well worth the wait....looking forward to getting back to England next month (!) to see it in the flesh...

 

in case you didn't know: KooK is a surfing newspaper, published independently and printed in the UK on paper from sustainable forests. If you wanna buy one for only £2 click here 

they should be available worlwide sooooon 

^I was proud to see my 'Barrilitos' drawing printed within its folds

^From birds to bellyboarding, it's full of loads of good stuff about surfing and not about surfing but still about this thing we do, if you know what i mean (?)

^sublime stretchy seamouse shenanigans

Real Sidewalk Surfing

Loved this creative sidewalk surfing so much i just nicked it wholesale from surfysurfy

Anyone who grew up inland and got their surfing fix from coning kryp reds on suburban streets ducking under hedge ´lips´and scraping their fingers along brick wall-barrels will understand.

Here´s the video link (gets good about a minute in): http://tinyurl.com/yhnocl7

TRIPPING

Off on a month long travel through Central America....Four days solid on the bus to Costa Rica then meandering back through Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala....

I'm not going to bore you with daily updates of my wanderings so expect blog posts to be sporadic or non-existent....Hasta la vista.

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

Sooo, nearly a month without a post, sorry to those that follow, but, wow! it feels good to be unplugged for a few weeks...the blogosphere is a truly wonderful thing but lacks the stuff of life like the smell of Quink or coffee and the feel of sand running through your hands or blood trickling through your toes from being washed over the rocks again.
Maybe in 2030 Web 7.0 will have these things along with hard holograms and scratch n' sniff but for now i'm enjoying a big fat reality sandwich on rye.
Anyway, enough gobbledegook, this is just a post to say i'm still here, or there, depending on your perspective.....

D79 T#1

^Soon to be screen-printed in a strictly limited edition of about five.

JUDAS

^ "Judas" watercolour drawing based on a great Bob Dylan quote (read the full story here including Dylan's retort: "I don't believe you, you're a liar" before telling his band to "Play it fucking loud!").

I hate narrow-minded purists in any for of art or pursuit (surfing, music, art etc), they try to stop inevitable progress and creativity like King Canute on the seashore.

^the cat wasn't so impressed

POSTER POST

^ Twice the fun!

^Good point well made

Get My Drift....

The Drift surfing site is blossoming into a really great portal of surf culture. There's some real quality writing, art and photography on here, a cut above the usual shallow surf mag tosh.
There's all sorts of stuff from both feature and blog writers about travel, board design, art, people, environmental matters etc. and I think it succeeds by using surfing as the seed to explore a lot of different things rather than just talking about the world of surfing in introverted isolation. It puts it into a context and uses it as a springboard to look at, delight in and discuss everything else....

I've got a little art portfolio section on there and have also been invited to do my own Drift Blog
Some content will be similar to this blog but a little more considered and collected together than the stream-of-consciousness stuff on here....expect a few musings, ramblings, rants and reactions to this surfing life, past present and future, in Mexico and beyond, through words, art, illustration and photography. Check out this germinating journal with my first post 'Sign Language' and take a look around some of the other contributors too. For a start I recommend the art of Collin Snyder and the travel wrtings of Ed T

Desiiiign

There is a real economy of design here, no doubt due to the simple truth of necessity being the mother of invention. Having done a design degree in England, which, in parts encouraged us to come up with wasteful fantasies of warped plastic, wood and metal to sit as showpieces in rich people’s second and third homes, it's refreshing to see examples of design stripped down to the bare minimum of functionality. These objects have a beauty all of their own.

These sandals, made from old car tyres and costing £2 ($4) are a great example, they do the job, are as comfortable as any other (if a little heavier) and will probably outlast you. They're not sold as eco-sandals by savvy marketeers, they've not got an integral bottle opener, theyre not a pro-model, they don't come in four different skulls n lighting bolt colourways for the Spring 2010 season. They are just cheap, hardwearing flip flops for normal people.

Another example is this brown paper bag; folded and cut, it makes a simple, unique shade that mellows the light perfectly. Ive also seen lightshades made of cheesegraters and Panama hats here.

just´paddling

Randoms

some random sketchbook pages and photos pulled from the annals to use up some pixels:

December swells

December swells have been bringing in some cold water but also some good waves here at La Punta (above) - Dawnies and being dragged over the   rocks are the order of the day for me while the real surfers up at Zicatela are pulling into some heavy ones

Into Mexico

Yes, I shall go into Mexico with a pretty definite purpose, which, however is not at present disclosable. You must forgive me for not “perishing” where I am….

I found these quotes from Ambrose Bierce which resonated strongly with me and my reasons for coming here and leaving 'there'.... They are very appropriately used in The Search For Captain Zero too. Apparently Bierce disappeared without trace in Mexico in 1913 but maybe he found what he was looking for, for he continues:

These be “strange countries” in which things happen; that is why I am going.

The Solitary Arts (or: the reasons why we do these things)

Everything I Need To Think About Skating Has Nothing To Do With Skating. 

This is a great short but illuminating piece of writing on Geoff McFetridge's Solitary Arts site. It brilliantly sums up a lot of my own thoughts on the 'solitary pursuits' i/we enjoy (skating, surfing, drawing etc) and how (and why) you do these things represents a wider approach to life and the prursuit of happiness.

Here's a short quote from the last paragraph, but please go and read the whole thing and while you're there have a good look around GM's world...

"We need to cobble together what skating means to us. The same goes for bicycling, skiing, surfing, paddling, climbing, painting, pottery, design, and cartooning. We have to separate what we know about the things we love and what we have been told. Puritan versions of culture are the product of marketeers and lowest common denominators. Have a good time doing the worst drawing you ever did and a day without ollies. It can do you good."

 ^ a quick 'contour drawing', a technique mentioned in the above mini essay.

Keep Going ----->

As there's loads of other stuff on this blog, if you're just here to see my art & illustration please goto my sister-blog D79 Sells Out to find drawings and paintings for sale.

Also check out my art & illustration flickr set for all sorts of sketches, designs, oils, cuts etc from the past couple of years..

Foraging II

After the success of our first foraging trip we've become regular scavengers and Ma Nature has offered up these treats:

^^

Fresh fallen coconuts: best chilled overnight then hacked open with a machete to drink the cool liquid then eat the white 'fruit'. Or add a good dose of rum and/or tequila to the freshly opened nut to make a Coco Loco. Dangerously good.

^^

Almendras (almonds), these fall from the tree and lie around unwanted everywhere because it takes an inordinate amount of rock bashing to extract the tiny nut from its shell and surrounding fruit.

 

^^

Jamaica (pronounced ha-my-ca) is the Mexican name for the red Hibiscus flower, which we dried out and boiled in water to make a syrup. It's then diluted with cold water to make a refreshing soft drink.

^^

Nopal cactus: this is around everywhere, just cut off a fresh green chunk, slice off the spines and you can eat it raw in salads or cooked in stir fries. it tastes a bit like a green bean but with a sticky juice inside. The local kids prefer to use them for some creative cut-graffiti such as 'Pedro 4 Angeles' and the face you see above.

^^

Bananas - before i came here i never knew there were so many different types- from Platanos Machos (Plantains) which are great fried and used in savoury cooking to Platanos Morados- purplish and apple tasting.