Returning To The Board

Skateboard decks – a popular canvas for people to decorate, paint, design or simply draw upon. It was my good friend Matt Brady who I can thank for helping get me into decorating skateboard decks as much as making woodcuts. Long before I got a handle on relief printing as an artistic medium I was experimenting on carving decks. The above photo has at the top the second ever woodcut I tried back in May 2008 and at the bottom the latest one I carved last week – both went a new home at True North in Melbourne last week.

Not carved as a printing matrix but as I sculpted illustration. I have to admit I do not really enjoy illustrating decks. The wood is so hard it hurts my hands (treated Canadian Maple), the wood surface is convex which makes correctly angling the carving blade tricky. Still they look really cool and while I repeatedly tell myself upon finishing a deck that it will be my last, I keep coming back to do more. I love the True North deck above. Like old-school tattoo flash with the tinted woodgrain showing up through the white inked surface.

I have only just by writing this post realised that I have actually done ten decks to date. I can’t help but think that deck No.11 probably isn’t far off…