The sixth annual art show I Used To Skate is on again this week at The Zoo in Fortitude Valley. This group art show is always huge with over 40 artists contributing works and the turnout topping over 1000 people in a room that only holds 450 people.
Based around the idea of the graphics/art that goes on and under skateboard decks, the show’s organiser, Matt Brady of The Outpost and Thea Basiliou of Blonde Venus always the give people contibuting the ability to do whatever they can dream up. This usually means that there is a really divererse rang of works on show from fine art painting to wacky lo-brow and some that don’t even make it to that classification…
This is the third year I’ve been able to be a part of this art show. The first time I contributed also happened to be with my first ever woodcut which got this whole thing started. Last year’s contribution to the show by me can be seen Here and this year I wanted to take the idea of creating a printable image in wood full circle. You know, using the skateboard to create and transfer an image about skateboarding which leaves you with not only a print for your wall but a skateboard that you can still spend hundreds of hours on skating around town.
So rather than simply creating something that was only viewed upon the skateboard, I found myself an oldstyle flat deck (revived thanks to Pass Port skateboards) and carved out an image that I could print from…
The fellow in the print is Shogo Kubo (of the original Zepher Dogtown crew) and he’s shredding a pool on the exact style of board that he’s carved into. Both the board and the print will be on display (& sale) at the show. The event is for one night only with the boards being displayed for the following month in The Outpost store.
Go here for all the details: http://skateonce.blogspot.com/
…and in other news, I’ve been experimenting quite a bit of late. I see on people’s blogs all the time different woodcuts that they have done on plywood. I’ve only ever done woodcuts and etchings on hardwood like maple. Because I’ve got an idea for a large sized woodcut, I figured I’d try some plywood to see if it would work for me and hold the detail I had in mind.
While I was at it, I decided to also do some testing with printing on different surfaces. I went to the fabric store and bought some thin, good quality linen, put my experiment into my screw press and crossed my fingers.
I call this one ‘The Deepest Sleep’. He/she is the skeleton of an extinct dinosaur that curled up deep in a cave to shelter from the cold only to (for reasons we’ll never know) never wake from their slumber.
And so, the plywood experiment is a sucess! The cloth experiment is a sucess! and with more ideas and options open to me than ever before, next I’m going to try my hand at colouring my prints with Gouache to see what other effects I can achieve.