Bling Is Dead - High Rollin' Skate Deck Wallpaper

We finished photographic all the decks in the studio (thanks to Toby Shingleton for taking the photos). I'll put together a photo book shortly. Most likely a 12x12 hardcover with each deck on a 2 page spread (about 20 inch photos!). That's the plan right now, however that could change. We'll see.

In the meantime, grab this wallpaper of what turned out to be the hardest deck to photograph. "Hey buddy, can you take a picture of this invisible thing for me!? Great, thanks."

Yeah, it went something like that. In the end though, there's nothing like a professional photographer to make it happen!

Braaaaaaaaaaaains

brain cupcakes to keep the zombies at bay. for the closing party tomorrow.
the red splotches? blood puddin'. naturally.

Show Photos!

We took some photos last week and posted them to webshots.com for your viewing pleasure.

Slideshow is below or check out the actual album for high res images and prices of those pieces that are still available for sale. If you're interested in purchasin any of the work from the show, please contact me via this blog or the webshots album.

ALL HANDS ON DECKS

Pac Man Series Skate Deck

There's still another week to go for the show... so why stop creating for it?

I started a series of Pac Man broken decks earlier this week but couldn't find them. I was planning on doing all four characters and Pac Man. Tonight I found them so I dove in.

Originally I planned on painting them with a cartoon style face but I found myself inspired by the art of Chris Ryniak who did a superfly deck for the show. As a result I tried my hand at some blending with acrylic glaze medium and decided to do them in a little different style.

Last Minute Entry...

For those that do not know, I went to the hospital a week and a half ago with viral Pneumonia, and was there a week. I am now home and slowly getting the use of my lungs back, and have been broken hearted at not being able to participate in the All Hands on Deck show at AG. It is now Monday, the show is up, and I am going every which way of stir crazy, waiting for the thumbs up from my Doc to get back to work. The Deck show looks absolutely awesome...(great work, Keith and company!!) and I just could not help but try to be a part of it. I slammed through my deck today, using acrylics and prisma color pencils, chosen mostly to avoid anything with toxic fumes and vapors. Now I submit to you all the result: TYRANNO-BOARDUS REX.
Whaddya say, Keith? Any chance I could get this puppy up this week and join the fun? I should be in on Wednesday/Thursday this week, and I am hoping there is room for one more...
James Groman

The show is live!

After a long weekend of setup with the help of more then a few people we got the show up. So far it's been getting a good buzz.

Here's a shot of me in front of the in-progress centerpiece of the show I cut from old broken decks. These are the 'deck chairs' I made from broken decks. There's super comfortable, sturdy... and available for purchase. ;)

She loves her Koi fish.

Here's the artwork for my wife's deck. She's pretty excited about the chance to do something after her first creative endeavor, a 12" vinyl record stencil piece I worked with her on.

We took a photo of her back and I taught her about tracing value patterns in photoshop with the pen tool. She sanded the deck and has the outline transferred to the deck. Tomorrow she'll be trying her hand at some watered down acrylics. Should come out nice.

Jeff Lenoce and Mike Frazier autographed deck

Huge shout of thanks to show participant and all-around-great-guy Chris Ryniak for calling in a favor from his buddy down at Skatepark of Tampa. Chris managed to get us a shop deck autographed by pro skaters Jeff Lenoce and Mike Frazier. We'll be auctioning off the deck at the show via silent auction or raffle with all the proceeds going to local charity.

Chris and Skatepark of Tampa are made of pure awesome!

Cutting it close to the deadline as always, I finished my board the other night. Looking forward to the show, the work on this blog is looks awesome!

the end of the line...

i would have liked to add more detail,
but i've run out of time, painted myself into a corner,
ha!
it just needs a couple of coats of gloss medium and
then off to keith in the a.m.
i can't wait to see everyone's decks.

LA office!

We have sent out our decks! LA will make the deadline!

We all had a great time creating our decks, and as you will see they are all different and amazing. I want to thank Keith for hooking this show up. I was a really nice for us out here to collaborate with all of you amazing artists back in the cold and snow ;)

different types of finishes

so, i saw donna's final deck the other day. she used Plaid - Royal coat decoupage hi-gloss finish. She told us that she sprayed several coats (i don't recall how many though) but her deck looks like there is an epoxy poured or some sort of heavy glaze/varnish on it.

on the other hand, Aaron was looking for some sort of finish and decided to use Krylon Crystal Clear acrylic spray. his deck was completely matte finish first... he put 2 coats and it has a nice sheen to it.

anyway, i was trying to take a picture of them together for comparison... but it didn't come out exactly the way i thought it would.


fyi, you will be able to find the krylon spray at any craft store (pat catan's, joanne fabrics, michaels, etc.)... however, this decoupage spray is hard to find. it looks like michael's is the only place you can buy that. if you're planning to buy the spray, i'd recommend calling the store first.

just a sneeky-peek...

i'm pretty sure i'm finished.. mixed media monstrosity! weeeeee

Monsters! done.

Well it was interesting to say the least. After many many late nights and false starts, I finished my 3 pieces today with a final touch up of paint on the text and a couple of coats of gloss. They probably could have used another few coats but I ran out of time. I needed to get them in the mail today so as not to be paying some crazy 2 day or overnight fees to ship them. UPS ground from NY for $15 bucks not too bad... they'll be in Keith's hands at AGI on Thursday.

I enjoyed the process and learned a few things along the way. One of which is I need to be doing more 'hands on ' art as opposed to 'hand on mouse'. I think my favorite part of this was doing the splattering last night. Messy and fun. I have some extra prints and some canvas lying around so I think I will make some more pieces on this theme.

Anyway, here's what you've all been waiting for...the final picture of all 3 completed decks....


:)

More show posters!

Thanks to Jaden Devogel for hooking us up with these 2 new show posters. Jaden's wife Eliza is doing a deck so not to feel left out, we talked him into knocking out a poster. Thanks again Jaden!

Perpetual Progress

This is the last shot I'll post before the show. I have some additional dark reds, blacks, blues and maybe some yellows to finish up, but I'm enjoying the steady fill-in-the-shapes painting process I have going.

More Cuts

Cut the large chunk out of the side last night, and roughed in a couple more bugs. May add one or two more at the top and that should be it, then we can route in a couple of tracks.

Paint pens and sharpies

The paint pens and black sharpies are working great for the line art.  Hoping to have most of it done tonight.  Although that's what was supposed to happen this past weekend.

Have a seat...

What do you do with about 60 broken skateboard decks? Build a club house? Heat your home?

There has to be something to do with these other then toss them so I asked Jim over at Tri Star Skate to see if he could hook me up with some broken decks. He put out the call on myspace and people responded big time by bringing over 60 busted decks to the store.

So I had a few ideas on what to do with them. I did a Boba Fett deck on one since Boba is all beat up and started working on a set of Pac-Man ghosts. I ended up doing an installation piece at the show with some of them (see photo below) by cutting out the name of the show from broken decks which then turned into a bunch of orders for customs letters.

After a little thinking I decided I was going to make something people could actually use. Furniture. The idea obviously isn't new, but it's new to me. :)

I found a pair of these Steelcase chairs in the dumpster at work. Nothing wrong with them other then some stains and the fact they're way out of style.


After pulling apart the seat to see what I was working with I fished through the pile of broken decks in the back of my truck and pulled out a few I thought would work. Turns out one of the broken decks is a Plan B deck signed by pro skater Ryan Sheckler with a sharpie. Doesn't get much luckier then that!

Only about 2 hours into it total and I've made some great progress, which is good because I want to do 2 of these chairs (and maybe a small table) for the show.


The deck chairs were a hit at the show. I sold 3 of the four chairs I created. The unsold chair is now relaxing in my office waiting for a new home (or enjoying it's current one). Want it? Let me know.

Here's a couple of pics of the two of the finished chairs. I plan on building a couple more of these for an upcoming deck show I'm curating in May.

Making Progress.

here's a start. gonna get in there and noodle it out, hopefully have it done by tues morning. may have to make edible zombie cupcakes too.

Sketch and stain on :)

Now to put some light acrylic washes over top to bring out the values and highlights. Going back to traditional art is like trying to animate at 8 frames per second :O slow and choppy. (Control Alt Delete would be nice)

Monsters progress II

Getting close to being done. Ran into a few speed bumps along the way, been working them out. Wound up priming the boards for better adhesion of paint & Glue...

Then I proceeded to trim the faces to just the areas I needed, while watching Iron Man Friday night with my daughter Celia. Glueing them was a little tricky. I felt the wheat pasting was a big sloppy mess when I tired it and I want these to to be smooth and flat. So... I was going to use a hi tack spray, but that seemed kinda messy too, so I raided Celia's art supplies to find a trusty glue stick. I had a few hiccups with not having enough on the back but I got them on and they seem pretty good now. Lots of rubbing and smoothing. But here we are...

Now for the paint. I lucked out buying some Folk Art paint and it has been great to apply for the most part. This black coat when on super smooth and with excellent coverage. I don't think I will need a second coat at all. Got a little lifting on the paper in a few spots but not bad. smoothed it back down before the paint dried.




Now I need to cut a stencil as a loose guide for the type. Trying to get that done in the next hour or so. I will put a heavy gloss coat on this to seal then probably a matte finish.

Work in progress

Here's a detail of what I've been up to...I haven't painted in a really really long time so I think this is a good way to get back into it.

The 1st idea

I originally started with this image and put some hours in on paining it.  I didn't take a picture of it right before I sanded it all off.  Lets just say the acrylic paints got thick, chaos ensued and the palm sander did what it does best.

When I'm not shoveling.......

My Saturday progress between shoveling snow every 10 min.  I spray painted a piece of cardboard with white and stamped the corrugation onto my flat black deck. Created a kinda cool corduroy effect.  I spray painted more primer on in the shape of my character and then started painting it pink.  The rest requires a few more spots needing to be painted with acrylics, then finish off all the line art with paint pens.

Another Poster

This one will go up on some of the columns at work. I wanted to get everyone's name up on the poster big enough and in a way that people would stop to see if they recognize any names. I'll see if I can get these printed at work, otherwise I'll have to hit up Kinkos and burn a few on their large format laser printer. It's like 17 cents a sq foot which isn't bad. Final size will be about 17 inches x 5 feet and I'll start getting them up Tuesday.

I just finished another deck tonight called "Weapon of Masked Consumption". Didn't come out exactly like I wanted but I'm not going to obsess over it. I'm going to move onto another deck "Boom Board" and maybe do another poster this weekend. We'll see how it works out.

One for the Ladies

Ladies First. These images shows some masking and lettering reveal after the tape is removed.
Board is painted white. Lettering is spraypaint. Pink to red gradient. I will add an image to the board next. Probably finish off with some sort of clear coat. Getting there! -K Carr

Bored Devil

Making some progress. I hope to have it finished today! Wish me luck. - mANGORN

Dave Savage comes through with a show poster.

Not only will Dave Savage have 2 decks in the show but he also hooked us up with a hot poster this weekend.

Mr Savage is a super talented fellow and currently available for freelance / full-time work, private parties, and referee at your next sorority tickle fight.

Hit him up at savagemonsters.com.

C'ing double

Here's a sneak peak at board #3. First and last you'll see it until the show. Sorry for the blurry pic.



Masked with frisket film, cut each C and sprayed it flat black. This is only phase one.

Sneak Peek

City of Gears:

Here's a sneak peak of a small section of my board:)

Glue ended up on more than the deck...

...But my drawing is successfully affixed.

Now, for the paint!

Wheat Waste.

Well, at least I tried. Off to a nice early start around midnite tonight to start glueing the prints down. Mixed my glue, drew some guides on the board.



Eh. The paper started to fall apart around the edges and was getting messy overall. The glue was also beading up, which lead me to believe the surface may not have been sanded enough too. So it was looking kinda lumpy and sloppy. Not the effect I saw for this.


After a quick im pow wow with Keith, who is always good for advice, I decided to paint as much of the black as possible and only use the cut out faces. So I cleaned off the board, luckily the glue hadn't set. The plan is to dust them with primer, glue down the faces and paint the rest by hand.

My primer was in the garage, so it was freezing cold. Brought it in the house to warm up overnight and will hit them in the am.

Bug Photoshop Mock

This is a Photoshop mock that Keith made for me suggesting to possibly even cut more away on the one side and I just may do that. We will probably cut some tracks in it similar to the mock as well. I may make him do it though, not sure I have the guts to do it.

92 C's

Sing it with me!!!

92 images of C's on a board... 92 images of C's. If one of those C's gets cut from the board, 91 C's left to cut on the board.

I want to wrap this one up quick. Something jumped out of the dumpster after work today that I need to make a deck with.

More Bug Progress

Well here's the front section in progress. There are more too add yet besides the ones that are indicated in white. The ones on the side and bottom are done. There's probably about 10 more to go then I have to indicate shadows somehow. I also may add some more cut away tracks by the bugs and just cut a huge section away on the side. Keith had a good idea there.

Going with this one.

I've gone through one idea already which was sanded off last night (way overthinking it). I'm thinking this will be the keeper. The board is sanded and primed, again. Going to use a combination of spraypaint, paint-pens, and acrylic paint.

Monsters! progress

Going for the triptic! I received my boards and prints today. I also decided to go the wheatpaste route on this instead of a transfer. Lightly sanded the boards to remove the varnish, and cut out the images tonight. Once I glue down the images, I will be painting around the faces, and doing the type and splatters by hand. I will probably paint over the prints in some places as well. I want to get the black as rich as I can, and maybe highlight a few areas. Probably start the wheatpaste tomorrow night. Never did it before, should be interesting...