Local Longboard Design

I heard about a wood workshop in St. Pete that designs and creates custom wood pieces, and longboards.  They were about to open up a shop and gallery on Central Ave. and were looking for artists to choose a blank board to create artwork on.  I was really interested, and one of the owners and woodworker Jon had me come to the wood shop to choose a blank that I liked.  It was a tough choice, but I went with the one that caught my attention.  Once I had it home, I thought of a design that would be unlike any other that would be shown.  I knew there would be a lot of skulls and masculine designs, so I was going to go for a more feminine design with a Folk Art twist.

Here is the finished board with my sweet puppy Nikita peering out from the studio.

I included some low relief wood shapes I cut on my new reciprocating saw to lend a little visual interest.  The hands were painted and gold and silver leafed canvas that was glued into the surface.  The custom cut glittery sticker leaves were supposed to serve as a stencil and peeled off.  But I liked the dark edge around the now subdued leaf, so I kept most of them on.

Here is the finished piece hanging (upside down, whoops!) at the opening of Local Longoard Company in St. Petersburg, FL