Previous Mountain Work

Sauze D'Oulx

During my season 2016-17 in Sauze D'Oulx, Italy, I kept a sketchbook (which kept my sanity). 

I have a love hate relationship with that season. I absolutely hated my job. I have never found anything so demeaning and for a price that the company should be ashamed of. I won't name them but they took a part of me that I will never get back, the part that had at least some respect for the general public, that could smile and deal with situations, yeh it's gone. They put so much pressure on me with absolutely no reward. They were paying me £400 a month for essentially a 24/7 job, and i mean 24h, guests would often ring me in the middle of the night, occasionally with real issues but more often than not with issues like "Err my pillow isn't soft enough". For the first month we didn't even get our full pay as it was 2 weeks training with no pay. Second month, money came out for insurance. I honestly couldn't afford decent food and I wasn't the only one. Occasionally I could steal a few things from my hotel visits int he morning but apart from that I pretty much just ate tins of lentils. Thankfully we became good friends with some of the restaurant owners where we sent some of our guests so they sometimes gave us free food and drink. Oh yeh and the kitchen pretty much didn't work so cooking wasn't really an option. 

I won't go into much more, there where a lot of issues but another pinnacle point was the fact that I have a broken ACL in my right knee. It's been broken for around 7 years but the amount I was walking down a vertical hill with ski, boots, bag etc. as well as skiing and generally being on my feet all day, took it's toll. Around half way through the season, me knee started really playing up. It was so painful I had to go to the doctors and they advised me that I stopped skiing for the rest of the season. This wasn't an option, not for my mental health. So they said 3 weeks off minimum. During this time I lost my mind. I think skiing was keeping me sane, skiing for me is freedom, at least mentally (obviously not for my pocket and the fact that it was keeping me there). 

Skiing gave me time to forget about my job,  few hours in the day where I could be completely me (to an extent, no off piste skiing in the uniform, I did it anyway). Without skiing things got bad. My good friend that I met on the season, who by the way I had never met before and who I was sharing a bed with in our shitty flat, helped me keep my sanity. She is positivity it's self but even she said maybe I should go home. This is around the time I started really using my sketchbook.

I was on the edge of leaving so many times but the one thing that kept me there, were the mountains. I didn't like the thought of leaving them before my time was up. I also had the change to ski again after my 3 weeks where up but unfortunately my knee wasn't doing great and I could not ski to the same level that I was before and I certainly couldn't get better in the park which was my main interest. 

To me, this solidified my love for the mountains. Alright it wasn't all bad, I made a couple of great friends and living in the mountains is something I dream about. I also managed to get somewhere with my park skiing before my knee fucked up and I felt more at home on the slopes than I have anywhere else. It did change after I lost some of my ski mojo after the pain in my knee but what can you do. 

Poster donated to me of Sauze D'Oulx back in the day that I drew on.

Here are some of the Images from the sketchbook that I have taken a bit further or that I think worked well:

Two variations of Magic Pencil and Posca pens.

This was one of those surprisingly satisfying outcomes from just using what ever you have with you. The colour from the Magic Pencils works extremely well against the solid blue of the ski. I was very loose with my marks whilst drawing the mountains which gives this quite a "wild" feel. 

Self Portrait. Magic Pencil, Posca pen.

I drew this on a day that I was extremely ill. Completely worn down from the job and skiing, not enough money to buy decent food, dehydrated and that insane mountain air that dries out your whole face had finally taken it's toll. 

I took this drawing further. I draw it free hand following a slightly more complicated skull where I was trying to convince myself to stay in the alps. This one represents how I felt at the time. Absolutely warn out and defeated by the fact that I couldn't ski because of my knee. 

I felt quite attached to this skull so when I returned to England I started developing ideas for it. Broken Bones Collective was born. It actually started out as Broken Bones Club but I realised how close that was to another Brighton "club", The Smoking Bones Club. 

I thought this collective could include all extreme sports, not just skiing. I also had the idea that this could be a part of a community of artists that are interested in this sort of thing and that they could draw as part of it. Say an artist that loves motor cross would be more suited to draw about that sport as they have a strong feeling for it. As well as a community it would be an apparel range. 

Unfortunately I didn't go anywhere with this but it is something that I might pick back up during this year. Even if it isn't as big as I planed. 

Some other work I did whilst in Sauze:

This was a birthday card I did for a friend and absolutely insane snowboarder. Posca pens and fine-liners. 

I was asked by the company if I would like to design the season ski hoodies. Yes please! Usually people tended to just get the templates on the hoodie website where they where printed: www.endofseasonhoodies.com/.

This was a great opportunity for me and the company offered to pay for my hoodie in exchange. I didn't want to put the company name on it (because obviously that's not what I wanted to remember about my season), instead I thought up ideas that related all the workers and was something positive. Of course it had to be the beautiful owned by the head manager, Hyra the beautiful, charismatic Alaskan malamute.

I wanted to include the season 16/17, the place and of course everyone's love of either skiing or boarding. The design above was the outcome. I also contacted various places to and If I could use their logo on our hoodies as a reminder. Some where easy to get to such as the restaurants and bars in Sauze that we visited often or that knew us however I felt like getting "sponsors" would be a good addition. Firstly I contacted a well down guy around the area Lurens Belmondo, who was behind the "No Friends On Poweder Days" t-shirts that we all knew (find him in Instagram @no_friends_on_powder_days) and he agreed that we could include his logo. Score! Then I contacted Planks https://www.planksclothing.com/ who are an established ski clothing company that where pretty popular with our group. I asked for permission and their support and they agreed! Success. 

After clearing it with the group, I decide to do a large back print, a small front print and Sauze written on the front pocket. 

The whole experience taught me a few things. I have never had to be so organised, making sure everyone had the right colour and style hoodie in the right size, being sent to the right place. Someone people also opted out for the front SAUZE design. 

Posing with Hyra, the star of the show, after receiving the hoodies.

All this work paid off when we received the hoodies and everyone was happy! Not only that but people around the town wanted in, people kept asking me if they could order one too. This is probably the most humbling experience I have had to date concerning my illustration. I did in fact get some of the town's workers some of the hoodies to which my manager was upset about. 

ON MY RETURN 

Mountain Spirit, acrylic on canvas

This was the first piece I did when I returned to England. It is a free hand piece wit no planning just went straight on with paint. It conveys the love hate relationship I had on my season. The brightness of the mountains that made me want to stay but the feeling I had of being trapped.  

Mont Chaberton, Sauze D'Oulx. Cellulose, acrylic and Posca pen.

This was a commission from a client who wanted a piece of artwork that represented one of the main mountains seen from the resort of Sauze D'Oulx, Italy. They wanted it to combine their snowboarding culture and the love for the mountains as well as keeping it colourful. 

This took lots of experimentation but was a great commission for me as I knew the mountain well, love working in colour and can relate to snowboard culture. I chose to have a bright pink base overlaid with a cellulose transferred photograph of Mont Chaberton, which in turn created the contrast of the mountain. I wanted to do this rather than paint or draw the mountain as it creates a contrast in texture and tone to the rest of the piece, contrasting as well in its realistic yet degraded aesthetic.

Something Old

I Draw this during my season in Les 2 Alpes which I believe was winter season 2012/13. Fine liner. These are two of my favourite mountains, la Roche de la Muzelle 3465 m with it's glacier on the left (part of the Massif des Ecrins) and the Aiguille de Venosc 2830 m.