sk8's Up!

As the summer draws to a close this Labor Day Weekend, many people will be heading to the beach. I'll be staying here in Philly as I do most weekends. But the idea of the beach, and sand, and surf got me thinking about a cool post. While all the surfers will be hitting the waves all over the U.S.A., why not talk about the city and all the sidewalk surfers. (a term for skateboarding, that I've always loved!) After all, Philly, and LOVE Park are known all over the world as an awesome place to skate!

I got my first "real" skateboard in the summer of 1985, not the crappy plastic kind I had when I was 9, but one made of wood, and with a cool design on the bottom! Although I'd like to tell you I was awesome at it, I sucked! Big Time! So... at some point I had to face it, It didn't matter how much I would read THRASHER Magazine, I was never gonna be any good at skateboarding. But I did love skateboard art, and the art thing was working for me, so I kept the board until my first year of art school here in Philly, and then sold it for drinking money.

Anyway, here's a brief look at Skateboard Art & Graphics.

When you look back to the 80's most of the graphics fell into two categories:

1. The Comic Book style of dismembered body parts such as hands screaming, skeletons and monsters with eyes popping out of their noggins, zombies in all their slimy glory, and other Punk looking characters.




The most well known artist of this category is probably Jim Phillips, who led the art and design for Santa Cruz Skateboards in the mid 80's.

Here's a cool example of his art!




Visit his site at:

http://www.jimphillips.com

2. The vibrant strait up graphics using lines, dots, and animal patterns.

The graphics would often use vertigo inspiring shapes in fluorescent colors, and of course the famous checker pattern, linking it again to the Punk Movement and it's idea of anti-establishment.

This 80s Vision Psycho Stick goes for $850.00 at Vintage Surf and Skate Emporium




http://www.vintagesurfandskateemporium.com.au/shop/80s-vision-psycho-stick-p-167.html


So in doing research for this weeks post I found this great book on skateboards that you should check out! DISPOSABLE: A History of Skateboard Art. It's by skateboard artist Sean Cliver, and gives an awesome in-depth look at skateboard art and graphics!  It's on my must have books about art!

Here's a link to info about the book:

www.disposablethebook.com

All right kids, have yourself an awesome holiday weekend!