Designs By Bowman

Artwork and Endeavours by Shane P. Bowman. shanepbowman@yahoo.com

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

3rd Thursday Art Walk @ Shoreline Village

Last thursday was the first ever 3rd Thursday Art Walk at the Shoreline Village in Long Beach and I was lucky enough to be a part of the event. This event was put together by Tim Dunham and 33 Degree Pub. It was kind of a last minute invite for me to even be in the show but I managed to pull things together and show my work. I am glad I did. It was a fun little event with my work, as well as Tim's, displayed out on the boardwalk and other artists displaying inside the pub. This is one of the newest art walks put together in the Long Beach area and it is slowing starting to gain some attention. Hopefully each show will grow larger and larger. The next one is on Feb.17th and there are already other restaurants in the village that are recruiting artists of their own to add to this coming art walk. 33 Degree Pub has a great menu and vast selection of draft beer and wine. Come check out the next art walk and get there early for the awesome happy hour prices. The event is from 6pm-9pm click here for more info on the art walk.

Thanks again to Tim Dunham of Some Things Creative and 33 Degree pub for letting me be a part of this local event.

- My artwork on the left and Tim's on the right, set up on the boardwalk.
- Tim makes these great portable art displays that work well for outdoor showing. They are foldable making it an easy set up and break down.
- 33 Degree Pub

Friday, January 21, 2011

#9- 5'7'' Fish

There has been a 5'10'' fish blank sitting in my room for over 3 months just begging me to do something with it. Now with winter break in full swing I have finally had time to shape it. I was fortunate enough to get to shape it in the FOAM EZ shaping box. Its a great set up, there is literally every tool in there you need to correctly shape a surfboard. There is good lighting, the planer is hooked up to a vacuum for minimal foam dust, and even a small radio and c/d player to get your jam on. It got all the bells and whistles in it and its a convenient place to shape if you don't have an ideal set up at home like myself. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to shape a surfboard whether they are first timers or veteran shapers. Thanks Brad @ FOAM EZ for letting me use this great set up!

Because of the portable shaping bay this was the best surfboard I have ever shaped. Granted this is only my 9th one and I am not ashamed to say there is still probably some problems with it. Before using the FOAM EZ shaping box I would shape at home under insufficient lighting and making due with my limited tool resource. But now I can see after using the shaping box how much it helps to have proper lighting to see all of the lumps and imperfection in the blank when you are shaping. So it is for that reason that this surfboard has turned out better that the ones before.

I shaped a 5'7'' keel fin fish. 17" nose, 21 1/2'' wide, 16 3/4'' tail, and 2 5/8'' thick. I carried the thickness throughout the entire blank so it is a full shape and very buoyant. Which is what I intended because this is going to be my small wave board. After doing some research and looking up dimensions and outlines of other fishes my board is pretty standard, except for the tail. I came across a popular Australian shaper Daniel Thomson of Tomo Surfboards. He has studied the aerodynamics of fighter jets like the F-18 and has applied the same theories to surfboard design. This has allowed him to come up with some very interesting shapes and designs that seem to work very well. For fear that I will not explain his ideas correctly go to his website here tomosurfboards.com for more info. One particular aspect of his design that seemed to make sense was in his tail shapes. You can notice in the first picture the tail is not a traditional swallow tail. I turned the swallow design into two straight angles instead of a singl curve because Daniel Thomson's theory is that water flows faster off of straight edges and should therefore get a little more speed out of the board. I know that there is a lot more going on as far as foil and rocker goes in Daniel Thomson's shapes than what I did on this fish but I like his concept. I don't know if this tail shape will make a difference or not but the nice part about shaping your own board is giving this stuff a try because there is no lose if it doesn't work.

Next stage is fin placement and installation then onto glassing. I have decided to try my first resin tint on this board. So stay tuned for more updates on the process of my 5'7'' fish. This resin tint is either gonna make or brake the outcome of this board for me.
***All photos are courtesy of my friend Brian Kucera, check out his website briankucera.com**

-Daniel Thomson inspired tail



Wednesday, January 12, 2011

A couple more from my anatomy class

-Life size


Sunday, January 9, 2011

Collection of School Projects Last Semester

The previous semester of school was a busy one. Here is the product of all the hard work.

- 11 weeks, 2 oil paintings a week= 22 oil paintings for homework

- Here are some of the more notable ones









- Other oil painting projects from this semester