Print available - A mosaic of some of the music/dance paintings I've done over the last few years.
Warm water... [sigh]
Just finished this last nite. A bit of summer in December ... I feel warmer already
Baaahh...
I love sheep!!This one's just finished and going to France in a couple of weeks. I don't normally like doing bigger paintings but every now and then it feels good to think big.
Project "Lisboard"
I got the idea, while looking up for a way to make a cheap heat exchanged system. The idea is quite simple, take some of those plastic election poster that plague the countryside, overlap them so the grooves are at a perpendicular angle on each layer and voila... a simple heat exchanger:
http://www.autoconstruction.info/La-fabrication-d-un-recuperateur.html?artpage=4
When I tried this, I realized that by overlapping the layers that way, you get a structure strong enough to support my body weight, yet very light. Straight away I thought... Surfboard!!
We're not talking performance board here, but sth you can bring out on crappy days or lend to one of your visiting friends. Beats using a soft board or buying a bic.
So it's quite simple really. First you need to take a few of these. I took some of the wind fallen ones first, then waited until the election was over and asked one of the people who were taking them down. They're all 4ft long, not that it matters too much as we'll glue them together anyway. Fibreglass and resing will then provide structural strenght.
Note that it works just as good with the YES side of the campain... these were the first I got.
Then the next step is to glue them together.
One layer must have the holes in the board facing one way and the other layer at a 90 degree angle.
A simple utility knife will cut them no bother.
I use some spray glue for this. Ask your local hardware store for what glue to use.
You want the boards to really stick together as you'll need to saw and plan the block into shape after.
Here's the glue I used. I like it because it's easy to apply, you don't need a brush or a big tube, it doesn't leave a mess and pretty much sticks in seconds.
I continued to glue the panels together until I had a 8ft long with 6 layers "surf blank". In this first try, I left out some of the panels near the far ends of the blank in order to make it easier to creat the rocker. In hindsight it's much easier to make it all one block and then plan the rocker later.
Next is the cut.
I took one of my board and drew the outline onto the blank from it.
I thought I'd use a handsaw for this but it proved messy. A jigsaw seems to make less of a mess, if any at all.
You can leave the tail for last but I was so anxious to see the full shape of the board that I cut the tail anyway. You want to watch out from then on. Those tails a fragile so they need to be handled with care.
Next I started shaping the board. I initially though a sander would a lot more gentle on that corriboard material. However it turns out a planer is definitely best.
The cuts are sharper and don't leave a mess. I forgot to take shots of this stage, so here's a few pics of what it looks like after the first bottom glassing.
Since I wanted to paint over it, my next step was to find a way for the paint to stick onto the material and do a few tests
I had some leftover of resin bought at the local hardware store and an old bed sheet.
I thought I could use that at the bottom of the board to act as a canvas for paint.
This wasn't such a good idea at the end as I didn't have enough resing and the bed sheet is nowhere near strong enough for this.
The whole thing looks ugly and started delaminating as soon as it dried. Here's a few photos for posterity :)
I like the idea of using old bed sheets for this but it simply doesn't work. I will strip the whole lot and glass it properly next.
http://www.autoconstruction.info/La-fabrication-d-un-recuperateur.html?artpage=4
When I tried this, I realized that by overlapping the layers that way, you get a structure strong enough to support my body weight, yet very light. Straight away I thought... Surfboard!!
We're not talking performance board here, but sth you can bring out on crappy days or lend to one of your visiting friends. Beats using a soft board or buying a bic.
So it's quite simple really. First you need to take a few of these. I took some of the wind fallen ones first, then waited until the election was over and asked one of the people who were taking them down. They're all 4ft long, not that it matters too much as we'll glue them together anyway. Fibreglass and resing will then provide structural strenght.Note that it works just as good with the YES side of the campain... these were the first I got.
Then the next step is to glue them together. One layer must have the holes in the board facing one way and the other layer at a 90 degree angle.
A simple utility knife will cut them no bother.
I use some spray glue for this. Ask your local hardware store for what glue to use. You want the boards to really stick together as you'll need to saw and plan the block into shape after.
Here's the glue I used. I like it because it's easy to apply, you don't need a brush or a big tube, it doesn't leave a mess and pretty much sticks in seconds.
I continued to glue the panels together until I had a 8ft long with 6 layers "surf blank". In this first try, I left out some of the panels near the far ends of the blank in order to make it easier to creat the rocker. In hindsight it's much easier to make it all one block and then plan the rocker later.
Next is the cut. I took one of my board and drew the outline onto the blank from it.
I thought I'd use a handsaw for this but it proved messy. A jigsaw seems to make less of a mess, if any at all.
You can leave the tail for last but I was so anxious to see the full shape of the board that I cut the tail anyway. You want to watch out from then on. Those tails a fragile so they need to be handled with care.
Next I started shaping the board. I initially though a sander would a lot more gentle on that corriboard material. However it turns out a planer is definitely best. The cuts are sharper and don't leave a mess. I forgot to take shots of this stage, so here's a few pics of what it looks like after the first bottom glassing.
Since I wanted to paint over it, my next step was to find a way for the paint to stick onto the material and do a few testsI had some leftover of resin bought at the local hardware store and an old bed sheet.
I thought I could use that at the bottom of the board to act as a canvas for paint.
This wasn't such a good idea at the end as I didn't have enough resing and the bed sheet is nowhere near strong enough for this. The whole thing looks ugly and started delaminating as soon as it dried. Here's a few photos for posterity :)
I like the idea of using old bed sheets for this but it simply doesn't work. I will strip the whole lot and glass it properly next.
European Fish Fry 2009 - Lahinch
The European Fish Fry 2009 is now over and all went well. Great weekend by all account with the WCSC longboard competition running in parallel.
Saw some amazing boards and got to trade a couple of painting for some surfing goodies. Roll on next year.
Two boards really stood out but all were no doubt works of art. Amazing stuff!!
Surf Talk in Sligo
I just finished making a poster from an existing painting. Oceanographer and author of Surf Science Tony Butt is coming to sligo for a 2 day seminary:
The focus of the lectures will be loosely based around the material contained in his book, including: the formation of low pressure systems, the generation of waves, the propagation of swell, wave breaking, tides, water temperature etc. and a fairly comprehensive treatment of wave prediction (what most people want to know about).
New board!
This is my new toy. I took a while to get completed, with some changes of mind and design in the process but I finaly got it in my hands. I got this made with the help of board shapper Paul Smith from www.glidesurfboards.net -well he did it all really, I only supplied the picture for the back.
I took it out for a couple of runs this weekend and last week and all I can say is that she is definitely attracting attention. The board also handles very well in hollow fast surf which was a surprise as my experience with other fish boards was theat they were best in mushy sloppy waves.Anyway, she looks sick and I'm delighted with it.
Poster for the Galway surf club
This goes back a while, but I made this back August 08 for an charity even run by the Galway Surf Club. The Painting was used for their poster and given to the Galway Surfclub for them to offer as a prize in a raffle they also ran on that day.
..and here's the poster with the finished painting.
The Galway Surf Club made a small video montage of the event. I dind't attend myself as the waves were breaking big and strong in Fanore that day :-)
I always wonder who won the raffle and painting. If you did, please do send me a mail.
..and here's the poster with the finished painting.
The Galway Surf Club made a small video montage of the event. I dind't attend myself as the waves were breaking big and strong in Fanore that day :-)
I always wonder who won the raffle and painting. If you did, please do send me a mail.
European Fish-Fry 2009
Finally, I finished this painting this week. This will be the poster for the upcoming European Fish-Fry festival that will take place in Lahinch (Ireland) this coming September 09. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out as well, I used inspiration for the central surfer from a previous painting I'd done a couple of years ago and I wanted to add small bits of what makes the Fish-Fry such a distinctive event, so I came up with that "film strip" idea on top of it, with what I'd only describe as "standard Irish surfer moments" :).
Here's a small strip of the whole process. I first come up with a small sketch on paper which I then straight away convert into a marker drawing directly on the frame.
As you can see one of the boxes at the bottom was eventually removed as I thought it cluttered the painting too much and would anyway disappear under the text once the poster is done.
The last image is a massive reducton in colors in order to get t-shirts printed for the event.
Found this on you tube a while back. I re-uploaded under my name to make it easier to find for my friends & family.
I got roped into this by complete accident at the lorient festival. From what I remember I got a text late at night (round 2/3am) while playing at a session at the Pub Glen in Lorient, saying that Theresa Kavanagh was short of a bouzouki player.
I can't really remember saying yes but the next day we were rehearsing for a gig later in the evening. As it turned out it was good fun. Thanks ye all.
I got roped into this by complete accident at the lorient festival. From what I remember I got a text late at night (round 2/3am) while playing at a session at the Pub Glen in Lorient, saying that Theresa Kavanagh was short of a bouzouki player.
I can't really remember saying yes but the next day we were rehearsing for a gig later in the evening. As it turned out it was good fun. Thanks ye all.
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