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I’ve just returned to North Devon after a superb trip to Greece.  10 days of great food, sunshine and adventure.  Of course there was no surf.  

I have a one track mind, despite the chances of surf being small I had made contact with the only surf school in Greece to establish I could hire a board if needs had been.  I had researched the spots and prepped Zoe that I might disappear on a mission.  I had found a waveheight model and wind forecast.  None of this was necessary because it was of course flat.

The obsessive mind never stops.  Among the rich sensory experience of travel I was still spotting artworks with waves, photographing microbarrels and fantasizing about what the lush coastline could do given the right swell.

 

I love Greece, it is a beautiful nation.  The people are friendly and open, the street art that spills out onto every surface is pocketed with real Gems.

 

 

 

Aparrently Appollo turned up at the oracle at Delphi as a Dolphin, as you do.  This is where the name of the site originates and probably not why the artist chose to paint a robo-dolphin.  Tis still pretty cool!

 

 I liked the variety of neatness, and finishness of the art.  This mermaid is quite crude, but it gives colour to the metalwork it’s dawbed on.  

It’s also striking the mixture of Murals, Throw-ups, Tags, Pieces, Stencils… and messages from Political to Sport to Philosphical… “Feel Free Like us” for example.  Smug anarchists!

 

 

 

 

Love the fly stencils on this too… a mixture of techniques and styles.

 

‘Time’, ‘Hermes’ and the comedically named ‘Buns’ seemed to be some of the most prolific Athens taggers I noticed.   This low angled, flared style is great.

 

Is this the work of the influential early 80’s American Graffiti artist and tagger lady pink?  Doubtful.  Cute though.

 

Finally, the last one of the many I shot is this mix of stencils, postering, free spray can work and appear (to me) to be a portrait of sardonic skinny sheffieldian social commontator, and genius Jarvis Cocker!?   I guess you spot what you’re looking for!??

 

Links and references:

A reliable wave forcasting resource for the Mediterrreanian:

http://www.poseidon.hcmr.gr/waves_forecast.php?area_id=med#selectParameter

Information about breaks and surf spots:

http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Europe/Greece/Ionian_Sea/index.html

Greeces only surf school / surf hire:

http://www.pargaweb.com/new/surfeng.asp

Contact: Giorgos Papandreou giosurf@otenet.gr

Athens surf and extreme sports shop (I couldn’t even find this on the map cos of the variability of translation for place names… but here it is anyway, on the web).

http://surfingreece.piczo.com/?cr=5

Lady Pink:

http://www.pinksmith.com/

Jarvis Cocker:

http://www.jarviscocker.net/

http://www.myspace.com/jarvspace

Two things at the moment:

1. My face is puffed up like Marlon Brando. I had a wisdom tooth removed.  I have some time off work!
2. I’m scouring the web for links to my blog and to socialise.  This is a source of inspiration.

I came across a blog by Droog79 (reference below), it inspired me create a piece of Japanese Surf Art in the unplanned street style:

Three Zoomorphic Curls Sketch 1. 

I used Pro markers and aimed for bold lines, high contrast and lots of detail.  The surfers are like Jelly Babies, like a pop cult reference.  The soap suds are a reference to Graffiti writing.

What prompted me to create this…

Droogs art: awesome! For the UK it reminded me of

• ‘Supermundane’ an artist/illustrator I’d seen under that name (anything but run-of-the-mill)
• as well as album art of Mr Scruff.
• Generally it reminded me of unplanned drawings of the Japanese Street Style:  A great example of being Nobumasa Takahashi:

Check this out, an entire wall painted by Takahashi San from ideas given to him as he worked (spot the surfer heading towards the mouth of a giant head)

Source: Nobumasa Takahashi pingmag.jp
http://pingmag.jp/2006/02/08/nobumasa-takahashi-draws/

There’s some great art out there, surfing the web is a great way to find grassroots artists and big names which can open up new ideas to you.  Cheers for the blog Droog79 (check it out at http://www.droog79.blogspot.com/)

Also see:

• Supermundane: http://www.supermundane.com/
• Mr Scruff: http://www.mrscruff.com/
• Florence Manlik:  http://manlik.blogspot.com/
• Akira Yamaguchi: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/features/arts2005/fa20050105a1.htm (if anyone knows an official website please let me know!!)

You can also see a timelapse movie of my sketch:

Now I’m off to eat some more chicken soup :-/