Jag ställde lite frågor till mannen som gjort sig känd för att teckna brädor, skatare, kvinnor med mera på éskläder, skor och diverse brädor. Lämnar intervjun på engelska.
At what time did you start drawing with this expression with the detailed skaters, skateboards and girls with the typical fine black lines? I started making the black white line drawings in 2000, 2001.The first one was a drawing made in one evening and was about skateboarders.
After that I started mixing with women since I meet my woman, I started drawing more and more women and it´s what I enjoy doing.
Skateboarding and women, good things in life... Along with friends and kids... I see some kids faces in your drawings as well. So tell me more about your family? My woman is Flor and we have three children, Marko who is six years old, Uma who is 4 years old and Kira who is gonna be two years old next month.
The childrens faces in my art are Marko and Uma. The kids are going to school now and Flor work sometimes and other times shes studying some stuff.
Your drawings are clean, but still quite detailed and things are quite authentic looking… Yes, I like to see a skateboard welldrawn, and I like to see the small differences between a shoe and another, between a truck and another, are small details what makes the difference, and I like to draw all the more realistic I can, so I draw stuff that exists and skaters can recognize.
Part of an Adrian Blanca drawing.
So you mean that its actually possible to tell thunder trucks from independents in some of your black and white skateboard drawings? Or how far does the details go? Well, I draw a lot of Tensor trucks because they are the ones I would get for free, but sometimes I draw different trucks... I´m very detailed with footwear, because ten years ago you could know someone skates just looking at his shoes.
Yes, and even more so 20 years ago when i started, then you would meet skaters that way. And now skateboarding is so common, so even if someone has a skateboard with them you probably wouldnt not start talking to them as often as back in the days. For how long have you been skateboarding yourself by the way? I have been around skateboarding since I was 12, 13 but I didn´t start skateboarding seriously until 16, 17 years old. I was very bad at sports when I was a kid. 17 years since i started and 12 since i got into it more.
Adrian, ollie.
Animation drawn by Adrian.
What type of spots and obstacles do you prefer to skate? Any kind of street spot, I just skate street.
Your first big artwork job in the skate business was around 2001 with art for Emerica, right? Can you tell us a few words about how the outcome looked? I was working for a snow-skate mag in Spain and for another skate mag and did collabs with some other mags. Through the mags I got in touch with the spanish distributor for Soletech, so I started getting footwear and clothes and core material at cheaper prize.
One day I meet Edu, the Soletech distributor, at an Emerica demo in Macba and he told me was going to a meeting next week to the EEUU so I gave him some mags and drawings to show the others there.
A few months later i saw Edu in a skate/snow clothing brand exhibit and he showed me the catalog with the tees with my artwork. At that time Soletech was so small and if you had a good idea you could get that one done...
About the Emerica tees it´s funny, because I used to draw éS shoes since the beginning, and the shoes they skate are éS accel and éS Koston 1, not Emerica, and any of them has head.
How long had you been drawing at that time, when they made the tees with your artwork? I was studying graphic design and I had been drawing well since I was very young, the only thing I could do right.
You have a lot of struggling with other things than drawing then? For sure, very bad temper and usually I´m absentminded...
Documentary video from the expo and travelling.
You were here in Stockholm some months ago doing an expo at Oneoff shop and painting their walls. Did you have time to see or do anything else while in Stockholm that time? No, I have done nothing in Stockholm like I have done nothing in any other cities of that tour... I just go from the hotel to the shop and from the shop to the hotel, I don´t have time to eat and no time to sleep sometimes, I worked from 6am to 10 pm here.
So you travel the world but dont have time to see that much of it, kind of? Yes, but I don´t care.
Yeah, I guess its still fun. Will there be any line of decks and shoes designed by you out on the market with these designs from the exhibition? Well, the first idea about my éS collaboration was to do something like that, I used the same éS design to do a 5 decks for the Barcelona last tour exhibit.
All the clothing I have done in this collab with éS is for sale, and the next holiday season there are another shoe and 7 new accessories with éS.
Sweet. Will you do deck colaborations with some board company you think, since és dont make skateboards? Now I would like to do something with Baker, Deathwish... but there isnt anything sceduled for sure yet.
Nice, hope you get some decks going as well.
You said something to me about selling vs working together with the companies? Yes, Skateboarders that are into art and artists that try to be into skate mainstream...
You know,there are people interested in putting skate, grafitti, street art and fashion in the same bag and that´s weird.
There are things that you can´t own because they don´t have a prize and skateboarding is something like that. You can´t translate your feelings getting a trick or just skating to someone who doesn´t skate.
For sure, thats a good wrapper for this interview actually. Thanks for the talk and good luck with it all. Any last tips for creative kids and dreamers out there? Anyone can draw good as hell and without the motivation to make a challenge or business with their talent.
Think big and its better to be forgotten than to be remembered for being sold. Fight for your rights, it´s the only thing we have.
By the time we publish this, some time after the actual interview, we can also add that Adrians Europe tour actually ended in New York and that the event there was a sucess (even though Adrian in his usual manner was painting the whole time and didnt see any of the city other than the place he was painting).
Adrian is now also awaiting his fourth kid. Big congrats!
Adrian Blancas utställning på Oneoff i samarbete med és blev en trevlig kväll. Här är lite blandade bilder, mest olika målningar och teckningar, sen dog min kamera. För er som inte var där ges en ny chans ikväll på Oneoffs Altamontfest på Obaren (se nyhet längre ned). Check images out
Bilder: Skatekonst på Oneoff 13/8
05-08-2008
Onsdagen 13 augusti (ej torsd.) kommer den Spanska skataren och konstnären Adrian Blanca måla utsmyckningar inne på OneOffbutiken på söder. Oneoff passar på att bjuda på Tapas (smårätter) och spansk musik. Här är lite pics på Adrian och hans tidigare konstverk med mera. Check images out
Annat om skateboardrelaterad konst:
Bilder: Franks kreativa utlopp
05-12-2008
Vi har kikat på en spansk skatare och konstnär innan, nu ska vi ta oss en titt på en svensk skateboardåkares och konstnärs verk. Ta en titt, sen kan ni också kika på intervjun som Ida Östensson har gjort med Frank. Enjoy. Check images out
Intervju: Att skata på konst
05-12-2008
Jag (Ida Östensson, skate.nu anm.) träffade Frank en sen natt i Göteborg på ett skräpmatshak. Han kom fram och frågade om jag eller någon av mina vänner "ville gå ut och snacka om livet". Vi var säkra på att han bara ville ha hem ett "kvart i tre ragg"... Read more
Bilder: Mer Adrian Blanca-målningar
01-12-2008
Foton på några målningar Adrian gjorde i New york, Antwerpen, Munchen och Barcelona på sin turné. Check images out
Annat om animerat:
Film: Animerat skate
13-09-2008
Ett klipp som kan va kul att glutta på om man inte gjort det ännu. Check the video
