Earlier this year (during the zombie-like months), Jessie and I collaborated on a skateboard deck to be auctioned off to raise money for a local kids' skateboarding school. We submitted the board, and a few weeks later received an email from the guy in charge of the event asking us to create another board in a similar style to the first one. Luckily, the two of us are still in town, so we were able to design and make a second board without dealing with the hassle of trying to do so from across the country.
Both boards were sanded down to reveal their natural woodgrain, which took a while and quite a bit more person-powered sanding than you might expect. Jessie sketched out the designs for both boards, and I cleaned up the lines and followed up with ink and paint. The painting part was both fun and frustrating: to get a transparent look, I mixed gouache with matte medium, but because of the layers of varnish protecting the initial drawing, the paint would sit on top of the board instead of absorbing into the wood, so the color would apply in strokes instead of clean layers. Overall, I really enjoyed working on these, and would be glad to make more, if I had more boards to work with.
The first board:
The second board:
In uploading these pictures I realized the ones of the second board came out rather shoddy, what with being taken in a fluorescent-lit kitchen and all. I'll have to remember to take some better pictures of it outside later.
