Paint and Pixels

Jesus Loves Skaters (and so do I)

Tonight was the annual skate competition at the indoor skate park I have been working at for the past year. It was my first time at one of the competitions. I donated the above painting as one of the prizes up for grabs. It was definately the hot prize to win (ofcourse it did have a $100 Zumiez gift card attached to the back of it). I decided to put Jesus on the bottom of the skateboard with a "sk8er" tattoo on his arm. While it is lighthearted and "tongue in cheek" enough to be cool enough for a not churched skater kid (who would wear a "Jesus is my homie" shirt), it also pretty blatantly expresses my most deepest reason for painting at all- and I think it's cool to be able accomplish both intentions at once.

Normally I line the edges of my canvases with decorative furniture tacks, but for this one I afixed large hardware nuts to the sides to give it a more industrial look: I also perfected the art of fotune cookies making- which (little did I know) is a difficult art to master. I used this recipe, but incorporated a lot of my own tweaking before finally getting it right. Inside the cookies are specialized "skater" fortunes and inspirational sayings like, "Say NO to hashpipes, say YES to halfpipes!" and some misfortunes like, "Rocket is a better skater than you- OH SNAP!". But as it turns out, that might not be such a misfortune, since Rocket grabbed the second place prize in the beginners category (a $25 visa gift card) which he already plans to spend on another UNeducational Nintendo DS game. Unfortunately, yesterday he dumped out my entire brand new bottle of magic puppydog potty training spray, which costed $12, and he will have to pay retribution before spending his prize cash... much to his disagreement.

I am still of the opinion that he got extra points from the judges for being such a good natured dodge ball target for the skater kids throughout the year (and for being the youngest competitor). I often wondered if I were doing long term damage to his well being by putting him in such a dangerous environment week after week as I go to help out, but I guess it has payed off for him. This skater kid had a special costume with a cape:Chris (pictured below) got first place in the advanced category:
He won a $130 skateboard, so he should do even better next year. Chris again: At the end of the night, Marvin won my original painting as a first place prize in exceptional skatermanship, which I have to say I am pretty happy about, because Marvin never throws balls at Rocket, and he is one of my favorite skaters. Don't tell the others though. When I told him he better hang the painting in his room, he told me he didn't have a room... which made me pause... and then made me even gladder that he was the one taking it with him.