Woman (actually) Surfing Illustration

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence surf illustrations, old surfers, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf art, surf illustrations, surfing, surfing art, surfing drawings, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized, women surfing illustration

I was showing someone the first run of the RealSurfers Coloring Book, and couldn’t help but notice; probably because he pointed it out, that I have quite a few illustrations of women, but only one of a woman surfing. I almost said a girl surfing, and, in fact, did title this “Girl (actually) Surfing Illustration.” Whoops.

It’s part of the myth/fantasy/history/tradition, I guess; and, having just hit 65 years of age, I probably should also stop thinking I’m not 46 years or so removed from being anything like a surfer boy. Surfer Girl, Surfer Boy; nope, doesn’t even sound proper.

This is a slightly-altered version of a drawing already posted. Trish asked me if it was a woman or a man. “She needs a little more… definition.” Okay.

Still, I do prefer a woman who surfs with flow and grace; Margo Godfrey Oberg, Jericho Poppler, Stephanie Gilmore; and, sure, throw in a few carves and power moves… no matter how manly a ‘man hack’ sounds, it’s all done on water. Water. Woman.

This week, men and women, boys and girls; I’m promising myself that I’ll get to the Printery. Not Monday; it’s a holiday, and I do have to go down to my Dad’s, and I do have a lot of work… this week.

Drawings: One New, One Redo

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf art, surfing, surfing art, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized

Image (90) I was thinking Honolua Bay, but probably not soon enough. Almost done, I had the thought that I should have raised the horizon to actually give the effect that this is from up on a cliff, and the waves are coming in from the bottom right. Okay, too late, but, still unable to try to verbalize and explain… working on that.

Image (89) I went through a lot of drawings a while back with my sister, Melissa Lynch, the real artist, and the one I’d done of The Little Mermaid, adding some waves rather than a harbor, was criticized, and Melissa doesn’t go into detail, at least when I’m flashing drawings at her, but the mermaid’s chin was too, um, prominent. Always (now) thinking of the coloring book, I redrew it, also doing a little lightening-up.

I have about twenty drawings (it’s four at a time for the pages) ready to add to the coloring book, coming soon, I promise, with… here’s my new idea: No staples, but (and I’ll experiment with this) maybe a ribbon in the fold, plus instructions to take out a drawing, make a copy, and color on that. That way, you can save the original book, maybe add to it down the line, and use marking pens (if you like), which would bleed through the paper.

If I have to explain that; it’s maximizing content on my end, having cake and eating it too on your end. Yeah, cake; if you’ll forgive my… even if you don’t. Coming. Oh, and I hope you don’t feel resentment for those times when you misjudge the surf situation, and, though you could have gone, you missed it. Fuccctttuppppppttuupdddd! Yeah, trying to get over the last (yesterday) episode of that story. NEXT TIME. Next…sob…time… yeah.

It was hot, Saturday, I couldn’t surf, didn’t want…

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf art, surf flyers, surf illustrations, surf posters, surfing, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized

…to work… not that I need an excuse to draw, or even to post two drawings today (and I am going to do some real work today) in two days. Wait, three drawings; finished one yesterday morning (please check out Rico’s essay), started two, finished one, finished (finished is when I just can’t figure out where to put more lines) the other this morning.

Image (87) Image (88) Okay, so, so now I’m thinking, imagining what I want to see next. But, meanwhile…

Illustration for “Fortune Point”

Posted on August 13, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf adventures, surf art, surf fiction, surf stories, surf-related short storties, surfing, surfing art, surfing drawings, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized

Trish thought the drawing looked like a “young kid, kind of chunky, maybe.” Yeah, fine; let’s say that’s what I was… you know what? I’ll just post the drawing, also added to the story by Rico Moore, next down, for your scrolling and reading pleasure.

Image (86) Thanks, Rico.

Most Recent Coloring Book Drawings

Posted on August 5, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf illustrations, surfing, surfing art, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized

It’s high painting season, and I have to, um, steal time away from something in order to do any drawings. Here are the two most recent:

Image (83) Image (84)

Swell of the Summer on the Last Coast

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under adam wipeout, mind surfing, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, SUP surfing, surf adventures, surf culture, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing, surfing in Washington State, surfing stories, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

PART ONE- On Friday, seeing something, or sensing something, or just hoping for something, I found some fun waves and no one out; no one to fight for position against, no one to compare rides with, no one to, um, hang out with; not that I mind; I was there to surf, surf rather than continuing to try, harder and harder, to catch up on high-season, mid-summer painting projects.

I had missed the best of the low tide rights, rights so rare on the Last Coast, the swell angle necessary to penetrate sliding sideways against the hooks and points and rivermouths and crannies of the Strait creating lefts where a straight-on swell wouldn’t; still, there were some sets hitting the indicators on the rights side, and rideable waves following the outline of the green-slimed rocks creating some punchy little rides. And no one out, maybe only one rig pulling through the turnout, briefly. It can’t be good, there’s only one old guy out. Move on.

Oh, there was Kyle, reading a book, on the beach slightly around the corner, shaded by the trees that mark a certain lineup. I parked, putting off going back to work just a bit longer so I could find out where this guy was going. The coast? Neah Bay? La Push? I had seen him from the water. He was sitting ashore of the lefts, an hour and a half after I arrived, ten minutes or so after the rights were high-tided-out, and the energy just not making the transfer to the next river rock point. “Kyle” he said, when I asked him. “You’re Erwin; right?” “Um? Uh; how do you know that?”

Another high-season job keeping me out of the water. You?

No, I’m not that notorious. I probably mean ‘infamous.’ But, Kyle explained, he’d been coming out from P.A. all week, went out once (too small, too much wind); but he had seen me here before, and had been there when my now-friend (friend being a broad term including pretty much any real surfer out of the water) Raja had, to general acclaim, taken my lost paddle, inserted it… yeah, maybe you know the story. It seems like everyone I run into was there for the paddle incident. “Well, Kyle; it’s supposed to get bigger; I’m surprised there aren’t more surfers cruising through.”

“Oh; they’ll be coming,” Kyle said. Now, I did, specifically, ask him if he knows Adam Wipeout; as everyone seems to. He said he didn’t. “Good luck, Kyle.”

Back in cell phone range, I spoke to Keith and Adam on the phone, just to gloat, a bit (they would, and have done the same) on my way back, passing the oncoming surfers Kyle had predicted. “Hey,” Keith said while I was getting a ‘topup’ on my oil at the Jiffy Lube, “it’s coming up. Maybe you should go back.”

“Tomorrow,” I said as an SUV with three boards and a luggage carrier passed by. To be continued (the tomorrow part)

photos from fairly recent encounter

Posted on July 22, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under aggressive surfers, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, Secret spots in Oregon, SUP surfing, surf adventures, surf culture, surf photos, surf sessions, surfing, surfing blogs, surfing in Oregon, Uncategorized

My sister, Melissa, took a few photos when we were both down at Chinook, visiting our Dad. I wrote and posted about the session earlier, and Melissa and I went over the photos she took of the session (one did include the guy who, when I moved just a little too far up the point, told me I needed to get myself over to the beach breaks). Hey, I was ready to get out anyway.

DSC_0621 (3)

Since then our 92 year old father has had, after many delays and a couple of stints in the hospital, an angioplasty procedure, successful, with a stent put in. He’s recovering; I’m going to go down to see him, and, if I see something breaking I can’t resist…

…if you have a problem with me showing up, maybe you’ll have to talk to my father about it. No, you can talk to me. I’d post more photos, but I asked Melissa to only send me ones where the waves were bigger and/or I was thinner. Big rocks, huh; at this semi-private, semi-secret spot?

Meanwhile, I’m way too busy right now to even get the additional pages for my coloring book set up… but I’m working on it.

new, revised, or redrawn images

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, Port townsend surfing, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf art, surf culture events, surfing, surfing art, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized

I’m preparing to add some more images to the realsurfers coloring book, getting them resized, adding some lines; redrawing a few. Here are some I’ve been working on:

Image (79) Image (78) Image (80) Image (81) Image (82) And here’s a backstory on the drawing of the guy on the nose. I’ve drawn it several times, had it all finished, but it didn’t seem right. I went back to the drawing I took this from, realized the surfer’s left arm is supposed to be in front of his face. Oops. And now it’s a bit darker. If I could, on occasion, sort of duplicate the silky, magic-lighting look of classic John Severson photos, I would. Maybe this is as close as I’ll get (not that I won’t keep trying).

Hey, it’s all just lines and dots. Suddenly I’m not sure if I reported on how the poetry/singing/book selling event went with “Awkward Guy” writer Franco Bertucci and I… it went well, probably better than expected. We’re not done. I’ll let you know.

TOP DOGS; Called-Out Twice in Eight Days

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under aggressive surfers, mind surfing, northwest surfing, SUP surfing, surf adventures, surf culture, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, Uncategorized, wiped-out surfers

I’m not even saying I don’t deserve to take some grief for paddling out at a spot with a tight and critical takeoff zone on my big-ass SUP. I am saying I won’t be taking it out at this one particular spot again; already made that promise to one of the other surfers, one who didn’t say that, if he got injured because of an encounter with me and/or my big-ass board, “We’re going to have a problem.”

It’s not even like this was the only collision or near-collision yesterday. If there’s a takeoff zone of about fifteen feet, max, and five surfers angling and jostling and jockeying; well; there’s going to be some… issues.

The waves at this fickle spot break very close to big rocks, with a minimal amount of time between waves. So, imagine three guys in position, one takes off, the next guy misses the next wave, takes the next. That leaves two guys paddling out, and the takeoff is between them, or, maybe, right toward or over them paddling back out. If you wait for a turn, politely, as if there’s some sort of line in a lineup, you, might not get a wave. If you miss a wave, you’re in the impact zone. If you’re on a big-ass board and someone makes a last second decision to go, late drops… whoa! Bail and hope for the best.

I should say five highly competitive and skilled surfers (and, yeah, I’m including myself), each of whom is capable of performing on the right wave, are just too many for the spot. Add in that the rideable waves only show up occasionally, and disappear quickly; and the competitive nature that only gets, let’s say, ‘enhanced’ by the competition, and someone’s going to get burned. And someone did. One surfer got frustrated and left; I persisted, and after the call-out by the surfer I’d have to say is the top dog in this neighborhood; and after he left, and another competitor got out; I remained until the tide shift shut it all down. It was two of us for a while; mellower vibe. Another guy, who had never surfed there before, came out; still not hostile/dangerous/hyper. Oh, maybe he thought it was an acceptable level of competitiveness.

Well; again, sorry for getting in the way. And, again, I did say I wouldn’t bring the big board out there again. [DISCLAIMER: Maybe if it’s just me.] I’ll finish glassing my stripped-down and thick 9’4,” now a thick-as-possible 8’6″ wavecatcher. That should work. Or, following the advice of another surfer out that day, “lose 50 or sixty pounds and go back to riding short boards.” Yeah, it was a hurtful comment, but I may have given him a pass when I said “I can’t do anything about getting older; I could get thinner.”

I suppose another option would be to quit.

No. Oh, I’ll be riding the SUP at the proper (determined on a case-by-case basis) spots, gliding between… Again, sorry, SBA; you do rip!

The Real Surfers Coloring Book is…

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, real surfers coloring book, realsurfers illustrations, surf art, surf culture events, surfing, surfing art, surfing drawings, Uncategorized

…ready. I put it all together in time for an event at the Port Townsend Library last night; twenty copies, numbered, artist’s proofs. Here are a few drawings that were redrawn, resized from the large originals, or are actually new: Oh, not sure how this happened, but the drawing on the left is the cover for the poetry book I illustrated. Franco read some of his poetry, sang two of my songs, two of his; and I recited (rather than sang) a song or two, played some harmonica, recited some of Franco’s poetry. It went well. And we sold a few books.

Surfer/librarian Keith Darrock took this photo of Franco Bertucci and I setting up and preparing to kill it. It didn’t feel like ‘killing it’ at the time; but, for a poetry reading, it was racy and raucous

Now, if I could figure out how to approach the larger market.

Image (77)