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 skating on kryp reds 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.

Cornwall

I found a couple of old photos taken down the Lizard way that made me all nostalgic for a Cornish summer...

^an old cafe sign points the way

^ i love this, the double yellow lines are fine all the way down the hill then they just go all fractured and mental. i think the line painter must have had a bit of a Philly fag-break...

Vain//glorious

I was lucky enough to be in at La Punta a couple of days ago when Brazilian water photog Diogo Dorey was out shooting....my first (and probably) last ever watershots:

^take off and trying to avoid the rocks

^i love the swell hitting the rocks sending the spray, and me, flying.

yel low cut

another newbie:

Fancy

A couple of fancy dress highlights from the last few years (but i felt shamed by this amazing geeky effort)..

^^Evil Edna from cult 70s kids TV animation Willow The Wisp

 

^^ Common or garden 70s hippy

DRIFT // BRISTOL SHOW

As mentioned a while ago i sent a few drawings to Bristol (UK) for a mini-show at the Drift re-launch party. They were really well mounted on white card and then on old crate bottoms which looked really cool. Thanks to the good people at Drift for their help and their excellent site....
Some original pieces are still for sale here and some are available as prints too here.

SWITCH-FOOT@REVOLVER

Good news, Revolver Surfing Emporium in Newquay, Kernow are stocking the Switch-Foot II book (which i've harped on endlessly about on my blog as i'm proudly featured in it). It's the only place in the UK to get it but you can buy online too...
Go forth and spendify.

'TERRY'

A new papercut. Thanks to cheap thin paper, blunt scalpel blades and no cutting mat, making perfect incisions was a bit of a losing battle. The paper would often tear instead of cut cleanly, hence the character's name: Terry.

^ It looked interesting on a white background too with some nice shadows revealed

Frame Grabs II

I've been geekily stopping n' starting surf videos and cutting n' pasting them into photoshop as potential paintings or at least inspiration for oils....
My first few were from Litmus and these are from the legendary Crystal Voyager and Ulu32 (about the history of surfing in Indo):

 ^A ghostly Terry Fitzgerald stylin' at Ulus // Under a bomb in Bali

^ Beautiful hallucinatory seascapes from CV

^ backlit barrel boy // GG in the mercurial zone

I WANT....

....SOME TROUSERS LIKE NAT YOUNG:

The current Mrs.Droog is getting pretty handy with a needle n' thread these days so i might put in a Christmas order for some of these amazing homemade hand me down trousers with stripey cuffs-

THE look this season while oyster collecting in California i hear... (What's going on with that jacket too?). Frame grab from Crystal Voyager.

Reincarnation

Unfortunatley i had to paint over my recent 'Early' painting due to lack of canvas.
This is the latest incarnation...'twill probably change again soon:
(apologies for crap foto)

New Drawlings

latest sketchbook delights:

^ a character called 'Kipper' and some reverberating tears

 

^ Photosynthesis

A hammock is a beautiful thing

Early

A new oil painting...done while listening to Chicane's 'Far from the Maddening Crowd' album on repeat... i think the first 3 tracks inspired the dawnie feeling of the painting, hence the name 'Early'
I'm not sure if it's finished or not....but as W H Auden said about his own form of art: "A poem is never finished, merely abandoned"

Day of the Dead

(A belated post)
As mentioned in this post,  there's a lot of beautiful paper-cut style imagery around at this time of the year for The Day of the Dead. We got hold of this cool 'Mi Angelito' banner:

....And took ourselves off to a Hallowe'en/DOTD beach party with some hastily arranged fancy dress- my sunburnt, salty hair and the humid conditions perfect for Heath Ledger's lank, sweaty Joker.....

PRINTS FOR SALE ON SOCIETY6

Society6 is a great little thing i stumpled upon, it's a US-based site for artists to show, promote and sell their work.... I've put a few drawings online available to buy as prints, they're really reasonably priced and can be posted worldwide. Lots more prints to follow shortly - Try look!

(Geddit?)

(Print details: Gallery quality Giclée print on bright white, matte, smooth surface, 100% cotton rag, acid and lignin free archival paper using Epson K3 archival inks. Custom trimmed with 2" border.)

Sketchy Studio

Not owning a scanner or photography studio, I had to make do and mend while photographing a series of drawings for prints. The prints will be available in my Society6 Store, only one up at the moment but more to follow soon.

^A broom tied to the plastic garden table, with a stick shoved through the top and the camera attached to the stick served as my tripod with the sun and clouds as my frustratingly ever-changing lighting.

Where It All Began II

If this was where the seed of my illustration career was planted then these cine-film grabs probably mark my first tentative steps in wave-sliding....

Pushed by my dad into a little wave on our polystyrene board on a beach in northern France- a joyful ride of a few seconds and i was hooked....my waveriding skills may have only improved a little in the intervening 25+ years but the joy is still there and that's all that matters.

Dead Beet

there's a lot of beautifully rusting Bugs around here....

Papel Picado

i've been busy with the surgical steel again- this time a seascape papercut. All completely freehand.
Analogilicious!

Another Fin(e) Mess

having lost a fin while surfing the other day i had to get a new one, couldn't get the same size so i've got a mismatched set now and will probably be more wobbly in the water than usual (excuses, excuses).
Anyway i've sprayed up the fins so at least they look like they match and used a papercut, that didn't go well enough to keep, as a stencil....

Hair Cut

ok, here's the finished version of the cut below.....i'm pretty pleased with the result (especially for a first ever)

Paper Cuts

Inspired by both Mr Pinks the amazing papercut banners you see all around Mexico, especially on fiesta occasions like today: El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), I had a go at my own little papercut based on one of my Big Hair drawings...this is how it's looking so far:

I didn't have a clue how to start and this attempt is more feeling my way than finished piece but my technique seemed to evolve with each experimental incision. I think there's a lot of potential here....more to come soon...

even the offcuts look nice^

Appleman

Not a great photo, but here´s a new drawing, done for a little show i´ll be doing at the DRIFT party in Bristol in November (more on this soon).

I´m sending precious ink on paper through the anarchic and anachronistic (try saying that after 4 tequilas) Mexican postal system so will be thumbing my flourescent plastic rosary beads and praying nervously for a safe arrival....

ART

A great mellow little song by Tanya Davis about living life as an artist and wondering why you do it and what it´s worth but how you can´t help it anyway....made a lot of sense to me.
Someone made an animated video for it on YouTube....

Edge of the World

we swam in this amazing little lake at the top of a petrified waterfall called Hierve el Agua up in the mountains near Oaxaca city.
As you glided cautiously to the far end it felt like you we´re going to fall off the edge of the world. ´Twas "Awesome" in the true sense of the word.

a chalk drawing of a whale

does exactly what it says on the tin...

YELLOWING IS MELLOWING

Happiness is.......watching your board go yellow over the summer from a season of daily use, sun exposure and memorable dinging.....

Firing

The point's been firing big time over the last week. The beach has completely changed with a load of sand being dumped over the rocks and changing the wave for the better. My crappy snaps don't really do it justice but there's probably some better photos over on RPM

The wave's lost a lot of the fatness and has got a lot suckier resulting in a little barrely section and now linking up with the outside section so you can now get a loooong ride all the way from way out on the point almost to the lifeguard tower if the swell's right and you know what you're doing. Needless to say I don't know what I'm doing and have been getting a battering in the hollower waves, stronger currents and occasional mini-Shipsterns style double-ups.
All good fun, the locals say it's the first time this has happened in 12 years and wont last forever so i'm off to enjoy it while i can.......

^ The big beachie at Zicatela has also been going off but i wouldn't touch it with a barge pole....yet.

 ^ I'm definitely not missing the cold brown windswell of my previous hometown Brighton (UK).

New Arrivals

Two new things came into our life last week and have already improved it no end:

^ First up, this little stray (the kitten not the fiancee) turned up on our doorstep yowling and looking for a home so we took him.
We named him Charley because he sounds (and looks a bit) like the cat from the 1970s 'Charley Says' public information cartoons for kids. For a bit of childhood nostalgia, watch one here
(apologies for pet picture on my blog, there's nothing i hate more on other people's blogs. But now, for my sins i understand why....)

^ "The Silverback" One hundred and ten CC's of raw power and Chinese plastic. OK, it's no Harley but it's our ticket to freedom and a lot of fun to ride on the bumpy dirt roads.  

 ^ The arrival of the cat also gave me a change to use my 3D design skills for the first time since getting a degree as a Designer Maker nearly a decade ago- £13,000 of debt well spent then!

(The cat doesn't sleep in it of course but does like playing with the window)

pee pee ess

as another PS to the post about the Switch-Foot II book, there's a little video promo of this new "megalith of stoke" right here

Enjoy.....

pee ess

A quick PS to the post below about the new Switch-Foot book, there'a another little interview with it's creator on swellnet.com

THE HUMP

This is an oil painting i started a while ago and have fiddled about with a few times. i think i'll call it finished now. I'm quite pleased with the ethreal look of it, much less literal than my last oil of Croyde bay and all the better for not being so consciously a 'surf painting' or seascape. Hopefully it captures more of a mood or feeling than being a literal representation.

While i was painting it it kept changing- one minute looking like a Dartmoor landscape at dawn, then a stormy sea under moonlight, then just abstract shapes and colours, then a sultry sky etc etc. Hopefully it is still somewhat ambiguous and allows the viewer to take what they want from it...
{PS- it's For Sale here}

Publish And Be Damned

Whilst the web is a wonderful outlet for any artist, it's always satisfying (and a sort of seal of approval) to see your work published in real ink...so I'm honoured and humbled to be included in the new SWITCHFOOT RELOADED book alongside legends of surfing history, travel, art and culture such as George Greenough and Albert Falzon (and, it seems, lots of men with beards.)

The "eccentric and enigmatic" Aussie Andrew Crockett is the man responsible for this mighty tome, a slice of 'the other side of surfing' pie deliciously jam-filled with art, photography, observations and stories with a sprinkling of saturated soulful stoke. or something.
The book should be available in November, in the meantime, check out an interesting interview with AC and some more samples from the book here on Empire Ave and more good stuff on the switch-foot site

MOBILE

there was this cool little handmade flotsam n jetsam mobile hanging up in our shack when we last visited The C Spot
(is that Frank Zappa or Jesus Christ?)

Fish Fry

well, i couldn't make it to the 2009 Euro Fish Fry in Ireland last month so i had a little one of my own....bumped into the fisherman on the beach after a surf and 20 minutes out of the water these beauties were on the grill- FRESH!