Board Meeting

A couple of weeks ago Hubby and I went to visit the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center in San Clemente. 

The centre has a very large collection of boards lined up with labels that trace the various developments in surfboard design and innovation.

These two boards are reproductions of the early Koa wood boards used by Hawaiian surfers.

This board was made in 1907.

Those below are other early boards which are very heavy.

Duke Kahanamoku was an Olympic swimmer who is credited with popularizing surfing.

Here is the very board from the photograph above.

The size and shape of boards changed as did the type of wood used.

This tail end of a board was used by a friend, Barrie, and her surfing partner, Pete, as champion tandem surfers.

Snarks and surfers often share the same water and not always in a friendly way.

Eventually, lighter-weight materials for surfboards were developed and they became more colourful.

The Weber Performer design is still widely ridden by surfers.

A mock-up of a board shaping workshop.

Barrie and her next surfing partner, Steve, (whom she married) continued to win surfing championships. Their surfboard shop Infinity Surfboard Co has been a fixture in Dana Point for many years and is the home of continuous innovation in surfboards, stand-up paddle boards, and other boards. Steve (aka Master Boehne) made me a custom board, part wave ski, part stand-up board especially for paddling sitting down on flat water.

The Sun of the Parts

'Sunny Cove' 6" x 8" Oil on Canvas. This is taken from a photograph by one of my cousins of a beach in Cornwall, England. Cornwall has beautiful, rugged coastline as well as some quaint harbours and towns. I always visit Cornwall when I visit England as I have friends and family there.

I wanted to keep the painting's complexity to a minimum to stress the simple forms of the cliffs and a sense of depth.

Feeling Blue

I've been working on a private commission, in watercolour, for a friend since I returned from my trip so haven't been painting with oils until this week.

This was painted from a photograph of a sunset at Doheny Beach.

'Blue Heaven' 5"x7" Oil on canvas.

Northern View

Following the workshops on painting with a palette knife, I was excited to try some of the things that I had learned.

I went through my own photographs from the Point Lobos area of northern California and chose this one to try out my new skills. I've been working a lot in the 5"x7" lately so it was refreshing to work on a larger painting again.

'Rocky Cove' 8" x 10" Oil in Board.

Working It Out

I have recently taken some workshops on painting with a palette knife. I love painting with a palette knife for various reasons but mostly because I love the sensation of spreading paint around on the canvas (or board).

This is the painting from one of my sessions. It is painted from a photograph the teacher supplied from a trip she took to northern California in May just a month prior to my own trip to the same area.