Our buddy (and unofficial midwest AirbrushTour correspondant) Noot just returned from 3 days in LaCrosse at the S&S 50th Show and Party. He sent us some pics for your viewing pleasure. And here’s what he had to say about the event… (above… Spina’s buddy “Tramp” with the original S&S Tribute Bike).
Most all the industry greats were on hand with builders from all over the world looking to win the $50,000 first prize for best build. The ‘Horse Backstreet Choppers’ magazine also had a separate show at the speedway. Both shows kicked ass!
Nice brushwork on the one.
Old, tired & ugly. Still looks good to us though - some nice old school airbrush.
Cool old school paint from the Horse Chopper Show.
Trevelen’s Panhead in white and light blue…
… with a nice old time paint scheme.
Paul Cox’s latest creation with big slick for traction.
Church of Choppers (build by Jeff Wright of Des Moines, Iowa) S&S Shovelhead.
Cool green Triumph from Spencer, Iowa.
Here are a couple more key bikes of the S&S Show:
S&S Show Winner from Hot Dock’s of Japan.
Cory Ness polishes his scooter.
Arlen Ness’ bike.
Chopper Dave’s X Wedge entry with cast one-off parts everywhere. This motorcycle is amazing.
Chopper Dave, Noot and the famous Dustin (from “Choppertown-The Sinners“) Partied it down on Friday Nite - good guys.
One of the charming things about living in Nevada is that the spirit of the wild west still flourishes here. After a nice hike in the Red Rock area outside Las Vegas, last weekend, we enjoyed a refreshing beverage masterfully prepared at Bonnie Springs in Old Nevada. Check them out if you’re in the area (702) 875-4400.
Amsterdam has always been a city of mystery to me. Is it true the things they say about this historic place? On most of the cliché items - yes. Lots of tulips, windmills, wood shoes, bicycles and cheese.
But I can’t go without mentioning the pot smoke-filled coffee houses, red light districts where girls are lined up in the windows for sale - Amsterdam is a land filled with much freedom. Where pot is legal and the drinking age is 16, you would think this place would be a constant party. It’s not though, as the local law runs a pretty tight ship on all these issues so it’s quite separated from the main stream. Though these lifestyle choices are not mine it was still interesting to see.
This is the Land of Van Gogh and the flying Dutchman the local talent was up to world speed when it came to airbrushing and custom painting. All welcomed my Island and tiki style. I held a two-day workshop at the Emprix/ALSA Netherlands facility in Deventer which is about an hour outside of Amsterdam.
This Historic city was amazing and beautiful. My hosts Iwata Europe and travel companion Alberto Ferrero hooked up with Robbert van Steenwijk and his wife Irene who run the ALSA Europe facility and training center. Having all the cool stuff I need made it easy to do my magic.
Lunch was a kick with Holland’s own sushi raw herring (my style for sure) - had to try it, “yumpin yiminee”!
My good friend Stef and his wife Sandy even drove up from Belgium for the weekend making it fun event. We tried lots of cool custom painting tricks as well as many demos. I also shared many stories and tried to give some inspiration for making a living doing this stuff. I shared with them some tips on marketing their talent.
I even purchased a couple leather belts locally and airbrushed and striped them showing a quick easy way to make some money doing this stuff. Local Deventer super talent Marky even showed up to share the fun.
I finished up the weekend with a Pin striped Tiki on the back of the ALSA van.
Europe is very different than the U.S. when it comes to this art but I see big changes happening right in front of me. I plan to return in a few months to U.K. and other location is Europe, ‘I’ll keep you posted.
I have the pleasure to see some special far away places in the world teaching and one of the great things about that is the opportunity to meet some of the best talent in the airbrush world. Luca Pagan made his way to Hawaii last year to paint at my Cosmic Airbrush shop in Honolulu. Since then, Luca and I have become very good friends.
During my recent trip through Europe I made a stop to see Luca. He lives in a city called Chioggia just outside he beautiful city of Venice. Funny thing was how in such a small, historic city like Chioggia airbrush has grown. Here is a selection of Luca’s work…
Luca’s style of art is phenomenal and his photo-realism is amazing. He can create some of the tightest airbrush work I’ve ever seen.
Not only is his commercial work top notch but also his fine art is world class. We took Luca’s painting to the top of Italy in the mountains where his work will show during a national bike tour event finish. Check out this guy’s Hawaiian flowers in snow - Hawaii’s impact is pretty strong in Luca’s work. Man it was cold up there, not to mention breathtakingly beautiful.
Luca’s touches of talent are seen everywhere there from Gelato and espresso shops to the beach amusement parks and scooters all over town. He feels at home there and everybody loves him.
I recently traveled to Barcelona Spain where I had a one-day invitation only event at the facility of Anest-Iwata Iberica S.L.U. on Saturday May 17th. A total of over 20 local Iwata equipment retailers and distributors and their selected guest artists attended an 8 hour demonstration using all the cool new stuff Iwata has to offer. Plus I shared some of my tricks of the trade and carried my Tiki mania yet to another location in the world. Only thing is they already knew all about it from my last trip to Europe last year. (TrackBack to that post here)
My island style has truly been accepted worldwide and nothing could make me happier. I also carried with some classic skulls and fire demonstrations but MAN they really go for the Tiki stuff.
Not only was the local talent in Spain top notch but the city of Barcelona was amazing as well. The architecture and history is breath taking as for the food I was some of the best in the world. I could spend much more time there but as usual I must move on. The Anest Iwata folks were more than accommodating showing me some sites and setting up a world-class training atmosphere for a day.
The Spanish Tiki.
My Europe travel companion was Alberto Ferrero of Anest Iwata Europe. He was very helpful making sure everything goes as planned. Also attending was Iwata Japan’s top man Satoru Iwata himself.
Special thanks go to Cesare, Juan, Patrizia & Manuel for running the show and David Naylor a local Barcelona top class airbrush artist for dropping by at the end and presenting me a piece of his incredible artwork. Stay tuned as I travel more through Europe spreading the Tiki and airbrush fever.
T’was a beautiful, sun drenched and slightly breezy day in Laughlin, Nevada where the 26th Annual Laughlin River Run was happening. We were there on Saturday (4/26/08) and got some pics for your viewing pleasure.
That radical custom you see at the top of this post was on display by Jim Nasi Customs - a monster of a machine with attitude galore. Of course, we saw tons of great bikes, babes, artists, tattoos and just about everything else you can imagine. We’ll be bringing you those posts, along with great shots over the next few posts.
The West’s largest ride-in bike show brings hundreds of exhibits and vendors plus top-name entertainment, contests, pageants and charity fund raisers. Free attractions include the Harley Davidson Traveling Museum, test rides on new Harley Davidson motorcycles, Miss Hawaiian Tropic competition, tattoo contests and live entertainment. Event passes include Poker Run, Custom Bike Show, souvenir pin and bandanna, and merchandise drawing tickets. Raises funds for Boys & Girls Clubs of the Colorado River, Easter Seals Society, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, American Heroes Foundation and other charities.
The custom bike show was well situated right next to the Colorado Belle Hotel and Casino. Stay tuned - we got tons of shots - that’s a post full of outrageous paint jobs and eye candy all by itself.
Buiders: many of the usual biker luminaries like Chica were there again this year.
Laughlin is an interesting town. If you’ve never been, you owe yourself a trip there. This gaming town boasts 11 resorts and casinos with 24-hour casino gaming and is centrally located between the Los Angeles Basin and Phoenix, Arizona just 90 miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada and is set in a rugged mountain terrain which gently slopes to the cool banks of the Colorado River.
No shortage of bikes. We heard numbers like 60,000 as a final bike count for this year’s turnout.
Beautiful ladies always make these events worthwhile.
Visit the Laughlin River Run site for more of this great event, and stay tuned to AirbrushTour as we bring you more great shots and posts from this year’s rally.
This is a followup to last week’s post from Dennis Mathewson of Cosmic Airbrush. He was recently in Yokohama, Japan conducting a workshop, hosted by AIWA and Iwata. AIWA is a Japanese paint and body-shop supplier and they sell many different lines of paint and equipment including PPG, House of Kolor, Standox, RM and many others.
Akiyama-san, owner of AIWA, and Satoru Iwata - hosts at the workshop.
Here are statues of the two Iwata brothers that started the company 100 years ago.
Ikeda-san is the main man when it comes to airbrush - he is #2 in the airbrush empire of Iwata in Japan and always a big help and a friend at Dennis’ workshops, as well as personally while he’s in Yokohama.
Following are pictures of a number of students working on their projects. Lots of Artool template action that weekend.
Tiki time. Last year’s project was fire, this year was Tiki.
Norio was Dennis’ interpreter for the weekend and did a GREAT job. He is also a good friend of Akiyama-san and very willing to help.
This is the 10 minute demo project teaching speed.
Learning to make their own templates was taught as well.
Class study day one. Everybody painted this one.
Class study day two. Everybody painted this one as well.
Dennis signing some posters for the students.
Students from the first group.
Students from the second group.
Next, Dennis will be teaching workshops in Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. May 15-25 he’s in Europe for Iwata and ALSA. He won’t be doing any U.S. workshops this year at all, things are really picking up in the custom paint world in Europe.
I just returned from my 10th trip to Japan and teaching my 6th Seminar at the Iwata factory in Yokohama, Japan. I’ve made many friends there and Japan is very similar to Hawaii with the cultures of food, art and price. This trip I took my wife, Susan and my daughter, Indigo for their second trip there and spent a week in Kyoto first before my seminar at Iwata. It was the week before Sakura (the blossoming of the Cherry trees), but it was starting to happen a little anyway. Just not as crowded, yet. WOW! Was that cool. My good friend Satoru Iwata joined us for some fun and we even went to the Ramen Museum for lunch in Yokohama. That place was amazing as well, seems like all we do is eat in Japan.
Here you see Susan and Indigo checking out the streets of Kyoto. Indigo just loves to hang out with her mom & dad - hehehe.
The art and culture amazes me. I must take 1,000 photos each trip I go and even now I still find old, old art like this breathtaking dragon at one of the many temples we visited some dated back to 300 A.D.
Japan is not weak at use of color (much like Hawaii) even in store display you will see bright colors almost seems eatable at times.
Here is the Golden temple in Kyoto its all hand gold-leafed, imagine that! Page after page (I looked close to check it to be true). Man! that must have taken some time.
This building is NOT hand Gold-leafed or airbrushed, but worth its weight in gold to me. It’s at the top of a hill of watercress fields and gardens in Yokohama and its where I call home while in Japan.
Satoru Iwata is a celebrity to all airbrushers everywhere. Friendly as always, he gave me a tour of the new factory showroom and new training (secret) facility - mostly robotics and spray tech you don’t need to know about as an airbrusher anyway. Iwata’s main biz is pumps, compressors, powder-coating gear, spray guns and yes, airbrushes too, WOW! Still, to me I love to see it and even see my own work hanging in the showroom with greats like Shin, and Chuta, Japan’s finest custom painters as well.
Here’s some of the star line up in the new showroom - the TH, HP and the T series some of my personal favorites.
Iwata has lots of conversion air caps many U.S. folks don’t even need to know about yet. My job is to tell you when I teach and travel in water borne areas. They are always thinking ahead. That’s Iwata.
Familiar guns like LPH 50 even have new air-caps to show off.
Iwata goes back 100 years when two brothers opened the company. Here is just one of the spray-guns from the early days, a 1955 spray gun.
Compressors are big, or I mean small and powerful. I have one of these myself in my home studio with scroll technology and a 5 horse silent air source, my neighbors can’t even see or hear it. It makes a small amount of noise like a refrigerator and about the size of one. I have the second one, also - the one on the left - and I can run everything up to even buffers off it (quiet as hell too). Iwata Medea can get these for you in U.S if you’re interested.
Here is more old stuff (love the color).
Even older.
Close up antique compressors the Iwata brothers themselves made.
Here’s my favorite part. I get to try the new mini spray gun, the HP-G3 and the HP-G5. Both work like an airbrush and a small compressor is sufficient to power them. AWESOME! These will be GREAT for home users as well as make up artists, even tanning folks. They spray as smooth as butter and at low pressure. The HP-G3 has a 0.35 nozzle and the HP-G5 a 0.5. They are intense atomization the air-caps and heads are so advanced I can’t even talk about it. But get one - they ROCK! Just ask the folks at Iwata Medea about them - they should be arriving in the U.S. soon.
They even have a new two-headed air compressor to pump it up a bit for home or portable users. In the U.S. we can only make two-headed calves and frogs hehehe.
The air chamber is in the handle - how cool is that? Thanks again Iwata.
Temecula, California is the place for car enthusiasts, where twice a year they gather to shine and show their cars and chew the fat about everything kustom and kewl.
This year’s event will take place March 6th through 8th. Tommy Tutone will perform at the Stampede on the 6th and the car show takes place on the 8th. If you’ve never been to Temecula for this show, do yourself this memorable delight.
We thought you might enjoy this video featuring the works of Dennis Mathewson, Fonzy, Tom Kelly, Bob Spina, Mike Lavallee, Steve Vandeman, Jeff Styles, Cliff Daigle and Jeff Merzee. The event was the ALSA Pinstripe and Car Show which took place in Vernon, CA last May, but it’s still fresh.
AirbrushTour showcases all types of airbrush talent, along with other creative and artistic disciplines. We also share fun events and the latest happenings in the airbrush community and paint industries. As we travel, we bring talented artists' work and the events of Las Vegas-based artist and photographer A.D. Cook to you.
AirbrushTour also features posts about motorcycles and hot rods, and the events that surround them, and some great travel pics of exciting places from all over the USA, so come along and share with us in America's passion for airbrush art.
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