RUSSELL
CROTTY
SURF
WORKS
Surf Drawing Blue

Working on "Celtic Dreams" while in a 2008 residency in the Artists' Fellowship Programme, The Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland .

Russell has been a passionate surfer for over 40 years. As a boy, he drew surf images in sketchbooks and the margins of his schoolwork, dreaming of the next wave. This obsession never subsided and he continues his surf drawings to this day. The surf works resonate strongly with surfers yet have also been acclaimed by fine art galleries and museums.
sketching in Ireland Sketching at the beach in Ireland.
Surf Drawing Blue
In the mid 1980's, Russell officially started his ongoing sketchbook series "California Homegrounds" – stories of real and imagined surf spots and characters, sometimes using surf world lingo and other times made up phrases that make up Russell's particular take on the surf world. They carry the roughened patina of being always on hand at the beach, in the studio or on the road.

Detail from Surf Drawing Blue, 1990

Out of the California Homegrounds books evolved a more formal approach to drawing surf images – the grid drawings. Within a penciled grid, small gestural surfers and waves, drawn with ball-point pen, create two distinct effects : up close, the drawings become dynamic sequential motion – yet from afar, they are minimal, abstract and quiet. Some of these drawings are massive, up to 10 x 20 feet, containing over 40,000 individual cells.
Surf Drawing Blue

Installation of "Surf Drawing Blue" in the 2009 solo exhibition "Seascapes and Surf Works" at Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Drawing is in three sections, 118 x 240 inches.

Surf Drawing Blue

A large grid drawing and books in the 2009 solo exhibition "Surf Works from 1988-2008" at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Sequence Blue, 1990
surf grid on 12 canvas panels, 20 x 30 inches each
80 x 90 inches

Installed in the 2014 exhibition "Russell Crotty: Surf Works" at University of North Carolina Wilmington, NC

As with the astronomy and landscape work, the surf works also include large scale books depicting favorite surf locations, some with detailed maps and overlays showing trails, paddle-out routes and trimlines of the breaks, with chunks of lyrical text about each location. Other books function as loose sketchbooks of real and imagined idealic surf spots.
A Portfolio of Surf Drawings

A Portfolio of Surf Drawings, 2008
40.5 x 61 inches open
ink and gouache on paper in canvas bound book

Russell has also produced a large amount of unique surf prints. These monoprints were created by coated the print plate with blue or black ink and drawing directly onto the plate. Like the California Homegrounds books, they are very personal, loose depictions of imagined and real surfing episodes.
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