Girl Skateboards: Modern Chair Series

 

I was on a little nostalgia trip earlier, hunting out old skateboard graphics. They're surprisingly hard to find. I guess they vanish quite quickly because they're typically displayed as little thumbnails for online shops and not as nice big images. Anyway, I made it my mission to find the first pro-model deck I ever bought... and I did, kinda.

The above image is my recreation of the Modern Chair series of graphics by Girl Skateboards. I had Jeron Wilson's (I didn't know who he was at the time, just that his board was the size I wanted). The decks are of course a beautiful tribute to classic Eames furniture and are apparently a bit of a collector's item nowadays. It's hard to call but I think I must've bought mine around about 1999. Does that sound right? It got well and truly destroyed.

It's weird to think that I bought something so 'designy' as my first skateboard, long before I had any interest or idea that I'd study design and become involved in illustration. Weird not because it was some mystical prophecy of things to come, more that at the time an angsty slogan or dumb cartoon would've been way more appropriate to where my head was.

I stitched these together using this graphic and this collection of thumbnails. The typeface was hard to match and is a little off. Still, I think they work pretty well. Click the image for a bigger version.

Update on 2012-08-14 08:52 by David Galletly

A quick follow up on this post after finally moving it over to my new site (2 years later): Tony Larson, the designer of these skateboards back in 2001, was nice enough to leave a comment here explaining how popular the Modern Chair series has become with collectors. Thanks Tony!

I had a browse through Tony's website and, dun dun dun, you can view his original designs (not my slightly wonky recreations) over here: Tony Larson: Modern Series.

Survival in the City

I picked up Anthony Greenbank’s insane book, Survival in the City a while back after reading an article about it on thingsmagazine.com. It’s mental. Like, really mental.

Survival in the City (1974) is a guidebook to urban self-preservation, an encyclopedia of tips and tricks for the everyman on a visit to a big city. It covers everything: transport, accommodation, going out and (terrifyingly) other people. It's a paranoid rave about muggers, card-sharks and drag queens.

The best chapters focus on nightlife or, as Greenbank puts it, the ‘trials and temptations of CITY BRIGHT LIGHTS’. If you’ve ever wanted to know how to properly buy a drink, safely handle a drug-dealer or survive a bar-brawl then worry no longer, instruction is at hand. In the big city, you’re doing pretty well if you’ve not had your wallet stolen by a drink-spiking transvestite after mistakenly walking into a poorly signposted “gay” bar. Even the text itself is a barrage of panicky capitals, footnotes and back-referencing that is almost unreadable.

If you can get hold of Survival in the City, I’d really recommend it. It’s brills. Here’s a few little paragraphs with a selection of Colin Harrington’s illustrations thrown in:

SHAKE OFF FEAR PHYSICALLY
Place the fingertips on your stomach just below the solar plexus. Breathe in deeply, press hard with the fingers and bend over forwards. Hold this position and count one-two-three. Now let the breath come out slowly and stand upright. Repeat this effective measure until you feel calmer.

This will reduce the tension in your head and allow you to concentrate.

AVOID BABY SNATCHING
Use fluids to keep you awake when pram pushing (see also THE SHEEP: p. 31). Know the danger of falling asleep if troubled/tired/hot on warm grass; your infant could be stolen (possibly by other children).

SIDETRACK SEX
Quell sexual urges when elderly/male/lonely before joining crowds in summer dress – tennis tournaments etc. It is far safer to masturbate first than yield to sudden temptation to brush/stroke/fondle female spectators in scanty attire when hot-weather atmosphere becomes too heady.

TOLERATE TRANSVESTITES
Expect men-dressed-up-as-eye-pulling-women in dancehalls, ballrooms, speakeasies, discos, restaurants, cinemas, night clubs and bars. Reasons: a bar/club/café may be a hangout for homosexual prostitutes – some or all in drag; a straight bar could have been infiltrated by freelance drag queens prepared to be picked up by the unsuspecting (You) – or they may take it for granted you know (when you don’t); or they may be bag snatchers dressed as women.

NEVER get uptight when you discover your companion is of the same sex as you. Hetrosexuals – pass it off. Don’t recoil in horror, or become violent when not normally given to scrapping.

Transvestites can be vicious – they have fewer inhibitions than normal men and rejection antagonizes them for they think they are beautiful; they also keep together and gang up; some have all-men minders too. So be careful if you encounter any.

KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON DANCING
Don’t get rattled – or rattle others – on a crowded dance floor when a spinning couple knock into you, a balloon-pricking maniac bursts your balloon, your partner abandons you or a stranger accuses you of treading on his shoes.

Follow the dance style of the particular establishment: ballroom-tea-dance/disco/night club. Don’t dance differently for the sake of being different.

Remember: a male may “dance” by resting his crotch on a stair rail or banister and squirming his pelvis – don’t react. If that’s this particular night club scene, go along with it.

STRIPPED NAKED
Improvise clothing when yours is stolen by a female working from a “trick pad” – a room in a sleazy hotel or cheap apartment building (see also THE WINNER: p. 304).

A PILLOWCASE can become a tee shirt when slit across the end for your head and down each side for your arms; start the slits with broken mirror/wooden splinter/burst bedspring, then rip the fabric slowly.

A PIECE OF SHEET 2 ft. SQUARE will make “shorts”; tear the sheet as for the pillowcase; wrap the cloth round your loins diaper-style; knot the corners.

Face the building superintendent without blustering. Ask to borrow trousers/shirt/shoes. It is not an occasion for threatening police action.

Just incase any nutjobs reading this think I'm a big racist homophobe, let me stress that the above extracts are not my opinion and you're daft if you think they are.

Pick up Survival in the City if you can. You'll maybe sleep a little safer.

Farewell 2009

Today, Monday 11th of January, is my first 'real' day of the year. After the whole Christmas thing, the whole New Year thing and a little holiday in Arran, this has been the first chance I’ve had in ages to get myself some juice and have a sit down.

Now, is it too late to reflect back on 2009? Are all the lists done? Does everyone know who made the best film and who sang the best song? How skinny should my jeans be? Oh, I don’t know! Damn. I imagine all that stuff is long in the recycle bin but hey, like I said, my year starts today. If there’s a dead horse lying around, I’d sure as hell like to give it a kick too.

Last year was fun. Lots happened, lots didn’t happen. I got to go places, meet people, see things, eat, drink, draw, laugh and muck about. I got engaged! I went on about 50 bloody holidays! It snowed! Over the next week or so I intend to post a few top 10 lists and things but on the whole, 2009 gets a thumbs up from me. Yeah, I know the world got itself in a bit of a state but jeez, lighten up. In the grand scheme of things; I went to Oban.

That image above is a chronological montage of my year, like the one I posted last January. It doesn’t cover everything, because I left my camera at home too often, but it’s a good enough place to start. I hope everyone else had a good one. There’s 480 unread blogs in my reader that I need to catch up with. Maybe they’ll let me know what’s up.

A bike from memory

My art teacher at high school, the amazing Mr Carberry, used to assign his first year pupils the task of drawing a bike from memory. He'd give everyone a piece of paper and a pen and tell them they had 15 minutes to draw a bike. Go!

When the time was up, Mr Carberry would gather the class around his desk and flick through all the work. The drawings were, as you'd expect from a class of uninterested 13 year olds, all over the shop. Everyone would laugh as he pointed at the twisted frames, the mismatched wheels and the precarious saddles.

He'd then give us a brilliant wee demonstration on how, with a little thought, a bike will almost draw itself. "Well, you need two wheels, don't you?" he'd say, "and you'll need to be able to steer, so that must mean the handlebars are attached to the front wheel." With a quick few strokes, he'd explain that the pedals must be where your feet go, the seat must be where your bum goes, join them up and, bang, there's your bike.

It was a great little lesson that has stuck with me for well over 10 years now. It was interesting, funny and inspiring. It helped that Mr Carberry was a proper beret wearing, baldy headed, moustachioed, mad-as-hell art teacher too. There are a thousand more of his lessons that are worth mentioning, but this one just came to mind. Today I drew a bike that came out wonky and it took me right back to high school.

Rugrats / Klasky Csupo

While lost in a deep Wikipedia hole, I found myself reading up about the production company Klasky Csupo, which in turn inspired me to hunt out the (surprisingly hard to find) Rugrats title sequence, which I have embedded above.

I've not watched it in years but, boy, that's some brilliant animation eh? Combined with the Mark Mothersbaugh theme, I think it makes for one of the most charming intros to any tv show ever. Rugrats itself, at least the seasons before they added the little brother and had them grow older, was great.

Klasky Csupo's other 90s output was also really strong. They were often weird to the point of alienating kids, but their artwork was always bang on. They had amazing logos and music too. Check out clips of Santo Bugito and Aaahh!! Real Monsters for some other goodies.

Impatience

A quick wee drawing for Illustration Friday. This week the topic is impatience.

Che Camille: Mini Show

I've just taken my Bowl of Cornflakes through to Che Camille in Glasgow for a mini sculpture show that's set to open tomorrow. As well as my piece, there will be work by Gary Bolam, Cheryl Field, and Lewis Holleran on show. Excuse my blurb:

This month sees artwork by Gary Bolam, Cheryl Field, David Galletly and Lewis Holleran. Come join us on the 1st of August 7-9pm for the launch of both the jewellery and sculpture exhibitions. A glittered deer skull, mechanical creations, stone cornflakes, video works and narrative jewellery all await you. Our new artist books section will be making it’s first appearance in the showroom also. The exhibition will run until the end of the month.

Sounds pretty good eh? Che Camille itself is an awesome boutique / workshop / creative space. It's well worth a visit. Here are the deets:

Sculpture Show: Che Camille

Various artists

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Show runs: 1st - 31st August

Opening Party: Saturday 1st August 7-9pm

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Che Camille

Floor 6, Argyle Arcade,

Buchanan Street,

Glasgow, G2 8BD

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Tel: 07862 720215

Email: camille@checamille.com

Stop by for the opening if you can. I think there will be all the usual music, drink and chitter chat. On a related note, there should be a little more Che Camille news from me in a few days.

Paper City: Urban Utopias

A while ago I was asked to draw the Paper City page in Blueprint magazine. The idea being that, in each issue, a different artist, designer, architect or illustrator showcases their personal vision of a utopia. This week, Blueprint are putting together an exhibition of their Paper City archive at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, my little drawing included.

The show sounds pretty awesome. I don't have a list of names, but going by some of the Paper City pages I've seen in the past, there will be some interesting people involved. The hanging also promises to be quite unique with work reproduced in multiple copies and bound as ‘pads’ so that visitors to the show can tear off their favourite images and keep them. Here are the details:

Paper City: Urban Utopias

Blueprint & various artists

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Show runs: 31 July - 27 October

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The Architecture Space

Royal Academy of Arts

Burlington House

Piccadilly

London W1J 0BD

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Tel: 020 7300 8004

Email: architecture@royalacademy.org.uk

I won't make it down to see the show personally, but if you find yourself nearby I'd recommend you take a look. I'll post some images if I come across them.

My 2008: 12 Photos For Every Month

12 months: 12 photos for each. Well, that's the idea anyway. In reality I extended and shortened a few to include certain pictures. It's chronological though - New Year to New Year.

With a little more deliberation I could have built the image out of funnier/more interesting photos or stuck to a '1 photo per event' kind of deal. I think I'd have driven myself crazy doing that though. I kinda just dragged and dropped things that caught my eye. I guess there's also little in the way of art related stuff in there, but hey-ho.

No doubt there will be a few more posts looking forwards and backwards this week. I'm not quite up to churning out full lists of my albums/shows/films of the year, but I'm sure I'll find something to talk about. It is January after all, the month of bullet-point lists.

Ready Salted Hula-Hoops

KP commissioned this drawing for their new Hula-Hoops campaign. I was hyped. Getting a job for a something you really love is the best thing ever. They paid me £2million. I nailed it first try.

Actually, it's a drawing for no reason whatsoever. I ate some Hula-Hoops, enjoyed them, drew a picture and put it here. It's not a big deal, don't worry about it.

SOTW3: I Believe In You

My Song of The Week choice this week is maybe a bit of a departure as it's heading off into the spangly world of pop. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If there's one thing I wont do while building this ongoing playlist, it's aim for some kind of cool points. The 17 year old me would probably turn a snooty nose up to a Kylie tune, but what does he know? That's right, nothing. He's an idiot.

I Believe In You by Kylie Minogue (iTunes) has, for some reason or other, an almost unique place on my iPod. It falls into a strange "I will never skip this song" category that I can't really apply to anything else. I think it's completely brills. A little investigation tells me it's a collaboration with the Scissor Sisters, which might explain something. I reckon it's better than anything they've done though.

BEST BIT: 2:07 - the chant after it all breaks down a bit, that and the bugabugabuga synthy bass.

I also recommend Slow as a similarly great slice of electronic pop pie from the same era. Good lying-on-the-floor choreography in the video too. Well done Kylie.

Recommendations: Moomin The Comic Strip

I've decided to post about some of the things I like to read, watch, look at and listen to. I think I've been worrying about always making sure that I've got one of my own drawings as the first post on the page most of the time. That's stupid. There are too many other things that can be talked about.

A good place to begin is with the first two volumes of Moomin, The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip published by Drawn & Quarterly. Each contains a bunch of the English-language Moomin comics by Tove Jansson first published in the 1950s. Here's a full page from book 1, where Moomintroll and his adopted brother, Sniff (who's a greedy bugger), try to deal with a bunch of unwanted guests:

As an 80s child, my first introduction to The Moomins was through the Japanese-Finnish cartoon that aired in the early 90s. The series is apparently not so faithful to the original books and unpopular amongst die-hard Moonin fans. As a kid I thought it was really cool and even after being mangled by TV, the world and characters still seemed really interesting and well developed.

The comic is straight-up fantastic though. It's playful, beautiful, tragic and fairly dark. The characters are all genius especially Moomintroll. He makes a great lead. As the blurb on the back says, he's got something of the Charlie Brown in him. When's that ever been a bad thing? Never that's when. He's totally all over the shop, a coward one minute, a hero the next. Always crying and shouting and sulking and laughing.

I don't think Schultz ever had Charlie Brown get so depressed as to be suicidal though. Have a click about where you can. Buy some books and stuff. There are some great clips from the spooky fuzzy-felt 70s animated series hovering around online. Infact, I'm sure you can get it on DVD.

UPDATE: The full set of Moomin books drawn by Tove Jansson are out and available on Amazon: Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4, Book 5. From book 6 onwards, the collected comics are drawn by Tove's brother, Lars.

July News

RECOAT GALLERY OPENING SHOW

I have two or three pieces (depending on space) in the opening show of the Recoat Gallery in Glasgow. I've just got back from handing them over today and things there are looking good.

It's got work from a big mix of folks I know and folks I don't - high fives to real-life buddies Elph, Carrie and Gregor. The gallery is about a minute away from the Kelvinbridge underground station, right beside the Woodside Social Club.

The show will be featured in the Arts section of the Herald on Thursday, get your grubby mits on that. There is also some sort of podcast coming out that I'll link to when it's sorted out.

The opening shindig is on Friday 13th July from 7-10pm, sponsored by Sailor Jerry. You better be there if I know you. No boring excuses, get off your bum and find a way.

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WHAT I'M UP TO THIS MONTH:

I've been playing about with some animation, will hopefully get that posted soon. Still working on my Running Amok for Analogue (it's 100% original content, give me a break). Maybe I could time it to come out at the same time as my solo show at Analogue, which I've not even mentioned yet. Also odds & ends & other junk.

I'll try to get back into the habit of updating here again. Got a little slow over the last couple months. Check out Rue Five's show in the Changing Room gallery window in Stirling.

Paris Hilton? Devo? Eh?

I'm not sure what to make of this, being quite a big DEVO fan and quite a small Paris Hilton fan. I wonder who's responsible? Weird.

Self-Portrait from 2003ish

Just found this on my computer from back in college. It's part of a series of Photoshopped images of myself I did for a self-portrait brief. I still really like this one (because I look a bit like Mr Bean) but my overall project stank and I got quite a bad mark. It gave me a bit of practice for the Fergi series though.