This was the first digital piece I did. It was for a design competition put on by CalSkate, a legendary Portland skate shop that’s been around since1976.

I met their manager Chris Nukes at the annual ADX Summer Skate Deck Show the month prior, which happened to be my first real art show. It was also my first time really seeing that when you take one opportunity, many more open up. This is a reminder to get out of your house and your comfort zone every once in a while.

Running with that notion, I chose to branch out into a new medium for this next project. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to get into digital painting; I had been meaning to for years, I had recently come into an iPad, and digital painting seemed like the best option for clean large scale printing.

With that I started to photograph old sketchbook pages, importing and collaging them together in Procreate, and adding elements as the idea developed. This was also a good reminder that all those old sketchbook pages aren’t useless. They are all ideas that just never got enough love and attention to become what they could be. Maybe there’s a lesson about us in there.

This design did not win, however there are plans to refine the design and recompose it into a shirt design soon. Stay tuned & scroll down for some behind-the-scenes images.

*Chris is also the owner or Merde Skateboards