This rough and ready one day car show and driving event is my personal favourite for the entire year!
As a car club we converge onto the Archer Falls Airfield, sit around track side enjoying a few bevo’s under a marquee and take turns hurtling our old cars down the track. Sometimes we break them! Mostly it’s a heck load of fun and endless laughs.
Situated at the base of the mountain, the scenery at this location is so superb it almost feels unreal. Every year so far this event has been blessed with perfect weather.
View from the Convicts / El Diablos Camp.Waiting in line for the track in Josh’s Falcon.
Plane VS Car!Kirsten’s HR Holden getting a mid mud pit shower from the water truck.
Fakesey’s Speed Shop’s Golden Child ‘Astroflame’
Nadia manning the helm of her Tank
Josh’s Falcon Wagon.
Sam Petersen’s XL Falcon
Siesta
Many thanks to the Asphalt Demons car club for putting on such an unforgettable event, year after year!
No my falcon wasn’t present this year sadly. Hopefully next year!
Greazefest’s lowbrow art show challenge has a consistent theme, Kustom Kulture. However the canvas is different each year. Since it’s inception I have felt honoured to be asked to participate. This year, feeling inspired by vintage barkcloth fabric, my offering was a couple of pink flamingos with palm fronds upon the blank US Licence plate that served as this year’s canvas.
US License plate Art Challenge pieces at Greazefest 2016. Artists L – R Mez, Rob Walker, Drea Darling, Scotty Makin, Luke Muller, Oggy Airbrushing and Nikki Parker.
Twenty lowbrow artists] from around Australia, are invited to the challenge and given an object to paint. Once finished they all displayed together at Greazefest, each with an individual coin counter. Greazefest punters can these cast their ‘vote’ by dropping coins into the counters. The piece that raises the most money for the RSPCA wins!
Given that all 20 artists must start with the same canvas, it’s really interesting to see the various ideas the artists comes up with. Some of the the artists even cut up their canvas object, add things to it or in the case of Rob Walker’s entry in the first year, turn it into a fully functioning remote controlled robot! (He won that year)
In 2014 all the artists received moon disc hubcaps. So fancy! But I was being pushed out of my comfort zone given I had never worked with metal. Thankfully I had the help of my partner who decorated the disc with metal turning and gave it an attractive 2 tone paint job. I took to it with enamel paints, because I heard that’s what you paint on metal. My results came out ok for a first try, but given my inexperience with the medium it wasn’t my best work. It was fun to try it out none the less! None of us stood a chance against the incredible robot moon disc anyway.
In 2015 our canvas was a plain wood grain skate deck, more my forte. A quick sand later (thanks boyfriend) I painted up a pretty pinup lady and some vintage roses without any drama. I was was blown away and pleased as punch to find out it had sold at the Melbourne Greazefest.
2016, the US Licence plate. After my moon disc difficulties I inwardly groaned at the prospect of dealing with metal again. No way in hell was I attempting enamels again, not with so many talented pinstripes in the challenge. My partner etched primed the plate for me and gave it a sand.
Full shot of my 2016 Greazefest RSPCA Art Challenge piece.
I hatched this crazy idea to use my newfound love of pencil art on it. Coloured pencils on tin is apparently a thing. The only problem was the etch primer was grey so all the light coloured pencils showed up rather dull. I then proceeded to layer the plate in gesso primer, hoping that would solve my problem. It didn’t. Sure the copic markers stuck like shit to a blanket but my pencils kept catching on the gesso surface and cleaving chunks out of my primed surface. Ah the bitter taste of defeat. I gave up and started the long process of covering my disaster with layer after layer of gesso. Damn that red copic marker was hard to cover!
Many hours and many layers later I began to paint the new design. I was now overdue for the due date to submit the finished plate. I figured it would have be a ‘better late than never’ kind of situation. For 8 hours straight I painted my little heart out. It was marathon last minute artist effort. But it was fun! That pesky red copic marker still showed a little, but flamingos are pink so it worked out. And given how awry by plans had gone before, I was pretty darn please with my recovery.
The Melbourne Greazefest has only just wrapped up so I have no word yet on whether it has sold yet or not. Mind you I’m already teeming with curiosity at what next year’s canvas will be. Hopefully it won’t be metal!
Hello all! For those who don’t know me yet, my name is Drea. I am a professional, licensed tattooer and artist based in Brisbane Australia.
For years I have been displaying all my portfolio work, news, blogs and art for sale in different nooks and spaces all over the web. It was a little difficult and confusing for people who follow my work to keep up. I decided it was time to have one place for it all. And here it is! Welcome to my brand new website.
Here on the blog I’ll be keeping everyone up to date with news, possible travel dates for the future and talking about anything and everything tattoo or art related. Think reviews, advice, tips tutorials and the life around me that inspires my work. Saying that, it’ll most probably contain a lot of photos of cars and dogs!
On the portfolio page you can find all my latest artworks, filtered and automatically updated. The contact page has a dedicated tattoo booking form and very soon I will list my prints, original paintings and products available for purchase on the shop page.
I look forward to sharing what I have to offer with you all.
Tell me what you think. Do you like it? Or maybe you would like to offer a suggestion? I would love to hear from you. After all I made this site for you guys! xo
