Cosmic European Tour - Italy 2007

September 13-14, 2007 - From Las Vegas to Europe, AirbrushTour gets around - at least with a little help from our friends. In this post Dennis Mathewson shares some great pix from his recent trip to Italy where he taught a workshop for Anest-Iwata Europe. Dennis says “It was a full class of FUN Italians - I have never laughed so much at any workshop before. They were a fun filled bunch of some of the best talent I’ve seen”.

The workshop was held at a former war armory site now refurbished to more creative constructive things like ART!!! Dennis continues… “We like that it was in Torino, Italy, It was a GREAT two day event started off by master illustrator Marco Paoletti (whom I was so humbled to be in such a great artists presence) and the day finished with a talk story about paint with Christian Bertolini”.

Day Two was all Mathewson with Fire, Skulls, Tikis and lots off good painting tricks off the trade. Iwata was the gear and ALSA was the paint and that made for a GREAT day. “They really had fun and I will never forget them”. Great artists sat in to make it a no beginner class too. Here are some pix from that week. Dennis had the pleasure of seeing some great Italian sights and meeting up with some old friends as well.

First, Dennis landed at the home of artist Luca Pagan (above) 50 miles from the great Venice.

Luca Pagan’s home city Chioggia (a very special historical place).

An avid Iwata user, Luca Pagan’s artwork is all over the world.

Dennis spent a day with Guliano Repetti in his shop who hosts the airbrush show every year in Italy and the most popular website and forum AirbrushFree.com and it’s a GREAT place to see world class airbrush too. Dennis tried out his new gear and water-base paint Guliano’s shop to do this tiki panel for him… HOT LAVA TIKI…. J.R. is the best and super fun to be around.

Above and next pic: This is Fulvio’s work - he is an artist in Varrazze close to Genoa city.

Fulvio is not only a GREAT airbrush artist but he is an awesome tattoo talent as well.

It was 3A.M. and the jet lag didn’t hurt anymore after Fulvio did a killer tiki tattoo on Dennis’ arm while all his Italian buddies hung out all night to watch. Good friends and good fun.

Dennis says one of the highlights of the week was the aquarium in Genoa where he shot 500 pix, and this is only one of some of his favorite Jellyfish. Watch for new paintings coming soon for sure. Perhaps he’ll share with us.

Dennis also shot some great pix of this pirate ship that was off the hook for reference for sure.

A beautiful shot of the historic Genoa city filled with art.

Artwork! Speaking of art, it’s time to go to work. First day at the workshop in Torino while Marco did his thing Dennis snuck in some pinstripe work on everyone’s badges and it gave him a chance to meet each one the first day. This was a big hit followed by painting cell phones, cameras and arms.

Other celebrities like Satoru Iwata was at hand to sign a few autographs. Here he signs master artist Marco Paoletti’s shirt.

Very different for Dennis was an interview about his roots and past. Notice how the ‘Italian’ is merging into his blood.

Art knows no boundaries. Being in Italy was special for Dennis, as we’re sure his time in Italy was for them…. Now it’s Tiki time!

Paolo from Splash Design and Dennis busted out all the cool ALSA stuff for them too, But most were already big users of all the ALSA stuff there. Still good to up-date them on the new stuff too.

What would an airbrush class be without a skull demo? Students breezed through this fast and then went on to all the Hawaii and island stuff and things got WILD!

Then, an ALSA Mirra and Ghost Chrome demo.

The day ended too short and Dennis lead the way with LOTS of demos and everyone painted.

Thanks everyone and remember Limoncello yellow candy (a local liquor). Dennis will always think of yellow in an Italian way forever!

Ciao…. and Aloha — Dennis.

Dennis’ next post is from Sweden, so stay tuned to AirbrushTour for more.

All pix in this post copyright © 2007 Dennis Mathewson - Cosmic Airbrush. AirbrushTour.com extends a special thanks to Dennis for providing our very FIRST International post.