Wednesday, July 27, 2011

bigger is better...

After spending time up in Gnaraloo I had the epiphany that shortboarding isn’t really for me. It is something I’ve been aiming towards, but the reality is that starting to surf at 25 doesn’t really lend itself to vertical reos and insane cutbacks. You need to have been doing it since you were a little tacker. Plus we rarely have good quality shortboarding waves, so there’s just not the opportunity to develop my shortboarding skills. Perhaps if I was able to surf the board 2 or three times a week I might be in with a chance. These two things combined make the journey to decent shortboarding almost impossible. The icing on the cake is that I’m not actually that attracted to it. I like the glide. Smooth, planing rides that move in synchronicity with the wave. Not the hack and slash, bunny-hop you so often see on short boards.

A few things have helped this epiphany to emerge. For instance, I saw this:

IMG_3156


IMG_3116


She was taking off right on the peak and styling all the way. THAT is what I want to be doing. High lines and long, 70s style cutbacks.

In the past, the turtle roll vs duck-dive has been the other incentive for working towards shortboarding. But this chick just turtled under the biggest waves, no problem. Ok. Sometimes it just takes seeing it to believe you can do it. I was also watching the Roxy Longboard Pro in Biarritz. When the pros were stuck on the inside they did all the things I do. No secrets. That’s just how it is when you LB. You can't fight it.

So I was stoked to get on my longboard and get styling. It finally occurred to me that if I was going to be stuck on the inside at Tombstones diving under 6 set waves, it really didn’t matter whether the board attached to my leg was 7 foot or 9 foot. So given that there are a lot more styling options on the 9 footer, I should start taking that out more often.

I was super stoked seeing the cheater 5s, cutbacks and the floaters that the Roxy Pro girls were pulling on their longboards. So I’ve got some concrete things to work towards.

I haven’t dismissed shortboards altogether, but the shortboard shape. In fact, I discovered the mini simmons somewhere on Flickr or someone’s blog and started doing some research. I have fallen in love. The glide of a mal in a mini-retro package! As part of the research for how short I could go, I had a paddle and caught a wave on my Dad’s 6’2 kneeboard last weekend. That was a slightly weird experience. Weirder still was seeing dad kneeboarding on a 9’ mal.

We were talking about the idea of having a crack at making one, but then that led to the idea of just letting someone shape one that really works…
If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is some serious eye candy.
After talking to a number of shapers, they all suggested that the mini simmons can go short. Super short. They have a huge amount of volume and the shovel nose that makes them easy to paddle even at 5’6. Yes. 5’6. I put the order in on Monday. They are shaped to be fast, to plane and do really well in smaller, sectioning waves. I’m sure there will be a period of adjustment and it will remain to be seen whether I can duck dive it, but I’ll have my fingers crossed.

It now seems like such a sensible alternative to the shortboard, complete with glide and Hang 5 stokeability.

If you've managed to read this far, well, well done. And thanks. :]

Friday, July 22, 2011

Surf Check

surf check

I've finally finished this painting. I used friskett/masking fluid to cover the washing line and girl's hair when I was doing the washes for the sea and sky. I've been working on creating even washes and it certianly helped being able to brush over the whole area quickly, rather than filling in small areas while other parts are drying rapidly. I did, however, learn the hard way to be careful when peeling the dry fluid off the paper.

I was inspired by the muted colour scheme of yellow/oranges, clear blue and a sea foam green of this artwork by John Culqui. (While you're there, check out the cool blog & art of the Boda Surfamily) John's work is simple lines and colours, but so evocative!! I ended up using a few more colours than I'd planned but I think I'm happy with it. The overall mood is pretty close to what I was aiming for.

I'm looking into doing another short course, this time in drawing. There is a 'drawing for beginners' or an 'illustration for children's books', but I don't have a lot more info. The children's book course sounds pretty interesting. Nice context for learning and I would like to develop that illustrative style rather than a life-like, photorealist style.

My next project: a painting of my mate's kombi!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Gnaraloo - 2011 Surf Trip - 1/6

Dolphins
Dolphins
We have been and now we are back.
All in all we were only camping for 4 days. My grandfather has been unwell and - as a lot of the family was on the trip - we needed to come home. He's doing really well now.
It felt so amazing to be up there again. In fact, when we arrived with the sun setting on Saturday afternoon, I could hardly believe we were there. We've been around the world since our last Gnaraloo trip and last July feels like a lifetime ago. The dynamic was really wonderful with my Aunt, Uncle, two cousins, as well as my Dad and James. It was great spending some time with my cousins; we haven't seen much of each other over the last few years and they've grown into amazing people.

I'll talk about the waves in the next post.

I took a pile of photos with my film cameras and will post them once they're developed. Really didn't take many digital shots, so I'm excited to see how/if I've managed to capture the trip through film. Excited to see how my Rebel 2000 (old film SLR) performs too.

We saw heaps of whales, dolphins, one dolphin who kept jumping entirely out of the water, a turtle and a reef shark/ray. There were some dugongs around too, but it's probably lucky I didn't see any of these guys! I just would have registered that it was big and not a dolphin.

Minimal injuries. Slashed my hand open on razorshell - this was after a surf as I was getting out. Ridiculous.
So still fighting fit and primed for Bali in 4 weeks!

Turtles
Turtles

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Ocean treasures

Recent watercolours I finished since coming back from our trip.
watercolour shell
I learn something every time I paint. Wet in wet. Wet in dry. When to use which. Blending, shading, colours. The biggest thing with watercolours is learning to leave it alone. The shell above was my first go at using masking fluid. Learned you have to take a bit of care pulling it off.
Treasures from Gnaraloo. So inspired to try a still life like this. Then I saw some work by Sue Kalab when visiting my Grandfather in hospital. Sadly I couldn't find any of her ocean inspired work online. I'm pretty happy with my limited colour pallette and the secondary shadows work well.
Gnaraloo finds