ABAmble

ABAmble.com

2009-10-26T16:27:00.002+01:00

ABAmble.com has been "out of order" for a long time.
- the site is now operational, meaning its not entirely finished:
a few elements and design-features are missing, but its now in use.

And looks at least decent...

New posts, sketchbook, portfolio-section and more!

Just moved!

2009-08-25T23:18:00.003+02:00

let me say it like this!

I'm on the mooooove!
from now on my web-life will mainly be on http://www.abamble.com/

Just like that!!!!!

Dombås, on fire!

2009-08-07T17:49:00.004+02:00

Black smoke in free flow through a window shattered by the small explosion. (p: A.B.Amble)

My hometown is a quiet little place, but today something happened.
The air-condition in a small shopping center went crazy and decided to explode!

Firefighters on their way into the building. (p: A.B.Amble)

Not a big explosion, but still powerful enough start a decent fire going and blast the windows across the store out the facade.. Didn't burn up, but i really looked like it was all gonna go up in flames when the back wall started to swell due to the heat.

Can´t really see it here, but the wall is bulging out pretty hard (p: A.B.Amble)

But eventually they got things under control and now the smoke column has more or less disappeared and only a tiny but of smoke is rising from down town. The house however will have to meet the uncertain times ahead. A rebuild was scheduled to start on Monday, now they might look at a complete rebuild instead. (photo: A.B.Amble)

Skiing at Juvass in August

2009-08-07T12:16:00.003+02:00

The park form the road (p: A.B.Amble)

It's pretty sweet to be able to ski on good snow in August. Yesterday I went to Juvass to do just that. There I also met Martin Lona, a friend from Trondheim, who just happened to be there.

Martin stoked on the day! (p: A.B.Amble)

Later the same day I met Anders Håheim and Øystein Bakken as well... great fun to just randomly meet good friends like that! They were all just as stoked, and everybody had a blast!

Martin pressing, boning out and being steezy on the down box (p: A.B.Amble)

The snow was good, the park-features where fun, the landings soft, the lift-line minimal, the weather partly cloudy, but good light... all in all it was a great day. Bailed hard, had fun, skied tons of laps and got a few decent airs. Oh yes!

Spoke to Per Vole, the owner, and he was really happy about the season so far. Lots of people, good conditions and also that their investment in the park pais off! (p: A.B.Amble)

Read the update on Fri Flyt:
http://www.friflyt.no/index.php?pagenr=12&articlenr=57287 (Norwegian only)

Carousel - a violent and wonderful one

2009-08-03T21:27:00.003+02:00

Carousel from maxime caron on Vimeo.

Lots of props to Maxime Caron!

I made something new!

2009-08-02T22:31:00.004+02:00

I created a character.
- working on him now, building history, personality and his looks.

tough work, never done it before, but always thought I should do it!

Now he is already a day old, getting bigger and more real by the hour.
So far he is 6 drawings, 5 Illustrator files, three A3 sheets of text and ideas.

You will see more of him soon!
- http://www.timslittleworld.com/

Rebuilding

2009-07-29T00:42:00.005+02:00

The blog is going through a little rebuild these days, so it might look a little shabby for a while.
- I have to get a few up-dates, some more modern script in here, but they don't work with the set-up I had before.. The result is simple, I have to rewrite quite a lot, and since I am a huge rookie it takes some time, with css, xhtml, variable definitions, and all the list goes on.

"try and fail until I get it right" is the story i guess...

still painting, soon done, just having a struggle here at the end.
Going to be done tomorrow though.. and it's going to be a relief giving the painting to it's owner.
- been breaking too much ground on this one!

Mark Jenkins!

2009-07-28T02:03:00.002+02:00

Lovely piece of street-art!

Fun!

Taken from the great web-page wooster collecive, one of my favorites over many years! Drop by and click a few pages back, and you'll find something you'll like! for sure!

Still painting

2009-07-25T03:35:00.004+02:00

I have been working on a painting now for the last two weeks. It's going pretty good. I gotta say, but now, close to the end, it's always hard! Once I'm done with this I'm ready to go out and enjoy a little summer once again, not only stay down here in the basement painting. hehe

something like: go out, and shred with good friends?!

Morten through a goggle replacement-lens. (A.B.Amble - 09)

And let me present to you guy, the sickest aquarium you'll find!
- the Kuroshio Sea

You have to see this movie-clip in HD on fullscreen! So impressive, such magnitude and it just simply looks surreal. Mandatory stop on a Japan-visit!

Radical slayers in Hafjell!

2009-07-24T14:13:00.003+02:00

Second edit in 24 hours. Rad stuff!

Anders Murud joined in on a day of bullshit on skis. Fun shreds, nothing serious, just simply a lot of fun. A lot of footie has been cut away, and as always I am depressed when I see how much color thats lost in the web-compression of movies at Vimeo, even though it is one of the best.

Guess I have to export an High Def version as well.

Enough talk, here is the edit!

Radical slayers in Hafjell from Andreas B. Amble on Vimeo.

the real afterbang!

2009-07-24T01:01:00.003+02:00

Afterbang has become a clishé,

and every skier and snowboarder should know (by now), that the phrase is takes from robotfood's movie, by the same name, Afterbang! One of the greatest snowboard-movies by one of the most innovative production-companies ever. But, there is a little piece of hope for "afterbanging".. his name is Magnus Skotte Nørsteng... and take a look at the site-link below and u can see why!

Here is a little something that makes Afterbang fresh again! Click the image!

---

therealafterbang.tk from Andreas B. Amble on Vimeo.

The west-coast update!

2009-07-20T23:00:00.009+02:00

Bergen, the fair city, from a unusual point of view.. (photo:A.B.Amble - 09)

The last few weeks has been fun.

First off, moving out from the apartment in Lillehammer, going to Dombås for a few days, then Galdhøpiggen (a peak), then skiing at Juvass, going to Folgefonna, the glacier, to ski more, then back to Bergen. Now, still in Bergen, with a week left to finish two paintings; where the large one is the top priority. This weekend I was at our summer-house to help my parents there. Getting a new fireplace installed, and I have to say, they have made an impressive effort.

The place is still a construction-site. My parents have put so much work and dedication into this place, and the place is starting to look good.

It's turning into a decent house. Glad its still kind of small, with a cozy feel to it, but way more functional now than back when I was a young todler. Still, the memories from that place are rock solid. An important location in my childhood, and now, with a little bit more practical house, it just might still be an important location.

Dark and gloomy forrest.. (A.B.Amble - 09)

The forrest surrpounding the area has great variation, it goes from green super humid dense woods, with a tropical feel, to the pine-forrest above. Also fun that it is close to the city, ewe ven though it feel like we are faar out in the wild!

Kid mid-air on the gnaarly springboard, which actually broke the final day. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Myself, pleaced with life up on the glacier (A.B.Amble - 09)

Folgefonna deserves quite a bit attenion as well. I dropped by the camp there, to visit old friends and to see how they were doing. The kids still love the valley and the resort on the glacier. And when I speak of kids I mean kids of all ages! It was a good week with Anders, Andreas, Simon, Gjermund, Olav and lots of others. Great weather, and great performance on the local beach-volley field. We owned everybody in beach-voley that week!

Quite a few more hours has been spent since this picture was taken. The painting while sketching out some colours, letting the terrain grow, as a natural development while working. I'll post a new picture when it is done, at the end of this week. Exciting since I'm still not sure how it's going to end, and challenging since I have limited time left.

I use acrylic paint, and I often use lots of water with it.

This summer is cool, I earn all in all a decent amount of money on three paintings, and it is actually my "summer-job". But don't go on thinking that it's just chill, relaxed and mellow. It's hard work. First of all, the quality is only based on my creativity and work, so I have to keep that at a high level at all time. Secondly, is that every day when I paint I spend a few hours before I get to it, prepareing paint, getting my head set on it and so on. And thirdly, it takes a lot of time.

Of course, this is fun! I enjoy it, but I get to bed super tired, worned out after a day of painting.
- enough about "my battle for art"..

Morten and Jarle skating in a ramp on an infamous secret spot! (A.B.Amble - 09)

Early summer is always a prosporous time. Everybody is happy about rising temperatures, nature turns green again, the boarders can also go skating, the parks turns into the epicentres of every city. And, still, the enthusiastic skiers and snowboarders have a great summer-season of soft snow and high temperatures ahead. Now, we are mid summer, not even in August. Still hope for those who need a more solid tan (myself included), and still plenty of days to barbeque, enjoy a pint in the park and to chill.. yup, life is good in the summer! (Still, can't wait til' the snow falls!)

A few pics to end this humongous post!

Picture from Odda, a city south of Bergen. I had to pay Jarle a visit, and even though Odda might be kinda slow, it still looks great! (A.B.Amble - 09)

Anders Backe is driving, I'm taking pictures... (A.B.Amble - 09)

I forgot my slippers in downtown Bergen, so my mother gave me these rad creations! Comfort! Oh yes! (A.B.Amble - 09)

The Honey-bee's are disappearing!

2009-07-15T20:44:00.006+02:00

A drawing I made two years back, tribute to the bee's! (A.B.Amble-07)

The honey-bee's are disappearing around the world.

This might not sound like such a big of deal, but the thing is that the bees are the most important insect when it comes to pollination of plants. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappear mankind has three years left to live. The crop will not grow up, the plants will die, so will the herds of cows, sheep and all the animals depending on them again.

First stop:
- check if your family is using one of those big "bug-busters" that's supposed to keep bugs away from the yard, to make the summer afternoons a little more comfy... they kill/scare way all sorts of bugs, including honey-bees.

UK has reported a drop in the population of honey-bees by 15% the last two years!! USA and the European continent can also see remarkable changes in the bee-population. These drastic changes can be a consequence of several factors. Temperature, humans keeping bugs away and many other things.

The fear of the killer-bee's a few years back might have created an image of bee's as a threat, where the conception of bee's as a threat in general, also outside US, could result in people trying harder to get rid of bee's. But the bee's that are disappearing is not only wild, a lot of them are also from beekeeping, where the hives are protected. If you want to read more about the Colony collapse disorder, click this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

More of the usual ski/art stuff is coming soon, just have to paint a little more!

A monolog after a movienight.

2009-07-08T02:27:00.001+02:00

Bergen is a city just the way a city should be.
With a clear mind it will make you think in the middle of the night.

To walk back home after a movie-marathon can be a delightful experience, of reenacting the core of the movies left in my mind. What stands out to me can be totally different from anyone else, but I know that I enjoy the vivid actions that is on display in my head when I head back home.

Tonight was even a little bit more vivid than the usual return after a movie-night. Tonight the surroundings enhanced the walk back home a great deal. The empty streets, the dozens of red spheres hovering over the park, that in real life is the streetlights. The sounds of the still so alive city, the rhythm and the water in continuos motion, while the moon bathes the wet streets, buildings, trees and the city bay, in a cool light. At one point while crossing a bridge the vivid scenes from the movies where totally overtaken by the scene that played out in front of me.

The cliché was complete, and all I had to do was just to suck it in while walking the last two kilometers to the house.

All that being said:
- Transformers Salvation is a unique movie with a script that exposes the total lack of artistic ambitions from the creators. This is just a product of the need to earn money. The robots are well animated, but the only good this movie can do is to bring cash to other movie-project with a little bit more integrity.
On the other side:
- Watchman was great. Simply put because it dares! A script that speculates and plays with our political opinions, the value of our ideologies and the value of human sacrifice. The movie dares to be incorrect and to stand out. The suspense builds up and down in a soothing pace, and the use of flashbacks, monolog and effects are balanced. This is not the best movie of all time, but its the best I have seen in a while!

And tomorrow I start on yet another painting, and I am also posting new pictures from Folgefonna and the skiing there!

Andy post!

2009-07-02T23:41:00.003+02:00

Andy is having a blast! (photo: A.B.Amble)

I guess this might seem a little strange, but while fixing ski-pics for the ad-mission mentioned in the post below, I took some radical pics of Andreas R. The reason is simple, Andreas showed up for the night shoot in a decent overall. Oh yeah... so, the no-shirt/overall photo-session in the sun-set was a result.

Enjoy!

Just stoked! Because of the light, the radical shredding and the fact that he landed on his bare back on salted icy snow five minutes later...! (photo: A.B.Amble)

Fonna 09 - 1.1

2009-07-02T17:01:00.003+02:00

No need for words, just a few simple pics:

On my way to Bergen from Oslo. (photo: A.B.Amble)

Me in sunset at Fonna (photo: Anders Backe)

Olav Stubberud, photo-wonderboy (Photo: A.B.Amble)Anders Backe grabbin' and tweakin over Olav, on a little ad-mission! (Photo: A.B.Amble)

Up on the highest peak..

2009-06-22T19:35:00.011+02:00

Dad on his way over the glacier. (Click to enlarge - A.B.Amble - 09)

Up on the highest peak.. at least in Norway! None the less, Galdhøpiggen is a really nice mountain! An easy hike, good accessibility, great weather and surprisingly good snow, that was the prospect we had noon at Sunday when we were standing on the parking-lot at Juvass/GPSS.

From there we walked 100 meters and put our skis with skins on, and started the hike. After another 100 meters we stopped and took a picture of the park, which looks pretty good, and this picture was taken on Sunday before the final polish.

The park from below. The knuckle far up is the 110ft. Field Production Jump. (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble, my dad - 09)

The park at Juvass show's progress from last year. Last year due to the circumstances the rails availeble was limited, this year that's way better with the rails from Beitostølen and Grotli. 9 or 10 of them along with 9 (10 with the big one) jumps, and a corner/step-up at the bottom.

Me, posting for the cam. (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble - 09)

So from where I am standing here it's quite simple. Keep on hiking. The first section is easy, and then it gets a little steeper from there, but never step. Just a solid hike. It has to be said though, the glacier there is kind of unpredictable, and it has a lot of crevasses: the name is "Styggebreen", roughly meaning "the nasty glacier". But due to the recent snowfalls and the solid sub zero temperatures during the night for weeks, we felt cofident without rope on skis.

The view from the peak is great, the backdrop with the peaks and the valleys is quite stunning. (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble - 09)

View down the ridge towards the glacier, which is totally covered with a blanket of snow. (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble - 09)

A steep flank on the side of the ridge where you walk up. I spottet this one when we were on our way up. Didn't know it exsited, so I was pretty pumped when I managed to get to the edge on top and see that it has an exit. I was even more stoked when I was a had a little steepness to it as well. Nothing crazy, just good fun! (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble - 09)

The snow was so good I had to hike up a second time so I could ski the steeper flank one more time. (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble - 09)

High speed turns in fresh good snow in late June, oh yeah! (Click to enlarge - A.J.Amble - 09)

Satisfied with the skiing down, we could return back home with smiles on our faces. The whole galcier in the back provided some nice mellow cruising at the end with great snow! (Click to enlarge - A.B.Amble - 09)

What can happen in two weeks?

2009-06-22T15:07:00.010+02:00

This was the last picture of random folks in the street outside. Leather-jacket, jeans, Ray-Ban's, black adidas sneakers: yeah, he passes as cool.

After Stryn it was Lillehammer, my fathers 60th birthday, Lillehammer, and moving out. Then Dombås and yesterday we even managed to get to the top of Galdhøpiggen!

Strange to move out from the apartment in the middle of the city, after three years in that great condo I simply felt like moving, but I had a ton of second thoughts while cleaning up the place. And such a clean-up! Spent nearly a week, finding things I haven't seen for two or three years, no wonder it took for ever. I even found a stack of old Freeze magazines!

Memories: Tanner Hall dspin 10 over hip, JF Cusson shredding hard, Seth sending rodeo7 off a huge cliff, T-Hall with the sickest cork 5 tail at Hood, Pep in the pipe, Olsson doing the tank wall-ride in Mammoth in Propaganda and the 3D issue of Freeze, where quite a few of the pics where in 3D and a set of fasionable glasses came along with the mag while Dave Crighton rocked the cover. Yeah, Freeze was the shit. (Click to enlarge)

Well, after sending/getting rid of 2 couches, 3 shelves, 3 beds, tons of kitchen gear, 5 tables, faar too many dvd's, cd's , clothes, ski-gear, printer, work-desk, paint, canvases and just stuff, the appartment came along nicely, and all of a sudden it was empty and clean.

The end wall in the livingroom looks empty...

In addition to cleaning out, I also had a little painting-frenzy going on: finishing two, and almost a third, starting on a new on, and planned what to do next on a fourth.

Started on this one in 2005, and now I'm redesigning and trying to get the new "consept" to work. Hopefully finishing it this week. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Think I started on this cat in 2005, but added the final touch a week ago (A.B.Amble - 09)

A portait of a friend of mine, started on it a year ago, and more or less finished now except from a few details with the light on the shirt. The on in the back I just started to sketch up. Both 1*1meter. (A.B.Amble - 09)

The Stryn-trip!

2009-06-07T20:32:00.017+02:00

Stryn trash-jib frenzy!

Jarle, tail-tap on one of the maaany planks we put up! SHRED-days! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

I put up a new plank-jib. Morten looked at it and knew just at once what he wanted to do on it, hand-tap cork 3.
(p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Morten, Øystein, Jarle and myself left Lillehammer friday a week ago, and raced over to Stryn. While drinking the first pint at 02 at the camp everything felt just right. (All images enlarge if you click them)

Øystein in the grove bare-feet on a longboard.. great combo! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

I keep saying it year after year, "there is something special about Folven and Stryn." One thing is the nature! So majestic:

The road up to the glacier, such a breathtaking view. (p: A.B.Amble)

The Stryn summerski resort from the base.. (p: A.B.Amble)

Jarle, just way to cool! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Øystein, being the man! (p: A.B.Amble)

Morten dancing of joy! o yeah! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

The people, the parties and the skiing all combined like that is special, and wonderful! Beer, BBQ, chilling around campfires and just having a good time.

Øystein, Maya and a guy I can't remember the name of.. (p: A.B.Amble)

Christina probably misbehaved... (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Morten plays around in the skate-park (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Wool sweater, a blanket and a pint! Doesn't take more than that! I do look like grandma though..
(p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Stryn had no park that weekend, all the effort went to getting the glacier t-bar up and running... but, we found some planks and had a wonderful weekend! Mad fun, lots of stoke and lots of snow! We where on the glacier saturday, sundag and monday. At monday we came up 15.30 (lifts close at 16.) and took the lift up and just had a massive jib-session hiking until 20.30 at night. Great day! All pics from the glacier taken on monday.

Jib til you drop!

Jarle, backside lip (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Nose-taps are scary, but fun! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Jarle throwing a back-flip over the tap, of course! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Tap! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

(p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Getting ready to hike up to get speed for a kick-jib we put up. Scary though, 'cause it was too skinny to ride with both skis, and you had too much speed to slide it, so I had to ride it one-foot... hiigh speed... scary and fun! The boarders Jarle and Morten on the other hand thrived on it! Jarle went HUGE time and time again.. the one bs cork 5 he did on it is one of the sickest tricks I've seen all year! Such sick cork, stomp and grab, but we didn't have the camera out then... typical!

The long hike we went hiked a few times! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Morten, bs rodeo! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Jarle throwing a massive backflip... (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Me doing a shifty 180 (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Jarle, bs shifty 180 of our home-made plank-jib! (p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Then all we could to was to roll' on back home.. me longboarding down surrounded by come quite rough nature!
(p: Øystein Bakken/A.B.Amble)

Late in the evening on monday we packed our gear in the cars and left. 10 o'clock on our way down from the mountain.
(p: A.B.Amble)

Back in my corner

2009-05-27T01:01:00.004+02:00

The last few days I've been trying to get myself back into my corner to art-galore. But, no luck. Getting myself motivated is tough work! And, it usually strikes late in the afternoon. So, today I left myself no choice. I was gonna do it, and.. I got up late.

This is an outtake from one water-color painting.. playing with patterns (A.B.Amble - 09)

I guess it's kind of strange to change day-rhythm just to get some creative things done, but it worked!! When I want to get other kind of work done I get up early, when I want to paint, draw or anything like that I do it best in the evening/night. I'm painting right now!

This is from another painting. It's not completed but getting closer. This is just the top part of the painting. I'll get back to it when I'm done. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Nice to be back in the corner.. !

Lillehammer skatepark!

2009-05-25T23:25:00.005+02:00

Skate -update!

Lillehammer will present the plans for a new skate-park at the "Sportsplassen" tomorrow in the newspaper GD! The great guys in LHMR brettklubb was in a meeting with the local authorities and they presented the plans.

So to all the local skaters: it's finally happening! The park has been a subject for many years, and many have given up a few times, but now with a stronger organized community here, the skaters can look forward to a new playground already this fall!

The skate-park is set to be opened at the 15th of September this year! The new arena will also include a football field, sand-volley and basketball field.

Here's the map of "Sportsplassen"

Click to enlarge: bottom right corner is the 750 sq.m. skate-park.

Lillehammer/dølafolk, kjøp GD i morra og les om nyvinningen!

Weekend edit: LHMR miniramp session & park-life

2009-05-24T13:38:00.011+02:00

Looking down at the miniramp.. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Saturday LHMR Brettklubb, aka Lillehammer board-club, invited people to join in an open mini-ramp session. Good litte crowd, good session including all levels, gave us a good afternoon.

This guy was skating.. (A.B.Amble - 09)

This one too.. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Thomas did not skate for some reason, and Mette just stood in the background being cool.(A.B.Amble - 09)

And we have this guy, the one and only Erkki, just chilling. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Kim Andre Eliassen actually won the comp (A.B.Amble - 09)

Knut Eliassen was just cool... (A.B.Amble - 09)

Sunday some people met up in Søndre Park to chill, play croquet and walk on slack lines. Nice chilling in the sun.

Even is putting up a slack-line (A.B.Amble - 09)

Klasn & friend part.1 (A.B.Amble - 09)

Klasn & friend part.2 (A.B.Amble - 09)

Even is the "Master of Croquet" (A.B.Amble - 09)

Nice calm weekend, and while others have their exams, I'm gonna get work done!
PS: Norges beste skate-event? www.fjolfest.no

A day in the name of skate!

2009-05-19T17:33:00.021+02:00

Kim Olsrud broke his board the day before, but he is still stoked, on our way to Hamar (A.B.Amble - 09)

I live with Kim, and some of my close friends Morten and Jarle were keen on skating as well, so we headed to Hamar. After a short visit to Boards and more, and a quick cup of coffee, we headed over to Koigen.The skatepark is small, but the design offers quite a few opportunities. A fun fact is that the park was not design by skaters and some of the rough surfaces had to be modefied, but it might have been beneficial though; the park looks really good.

Kim hardflip (A.B.Amble - 09)

And as it turns out it's pretty good to skate as well! Banks, quarter, flats, rails, everything made out of rocks, steel and smooth concrete.

Kim - nose og Kevin Bækkel bs bigspin (A.B.Amble - 09)

As usual Kim was very stoked, and let loose his enthusiasm on the banks, over the rails and down a drop or two. Jarle and Morten began straight away with a good old game of S.K.A.T.E and kept it going most of the day. Jarle kept Morten annoyed with fakie stuff, but Morten got payback after not too long.

Jarle - fakie axel-stall

Morten Kveen Johanssen - kickflip to axel-stall (A.B.Amble - 09)

Still, quite often Morten and Jarle were sitting on the sideline, looking at Kim having a one-man-show. His skating has progressed lots the last few years, and he's more eager than ever to learn new tricks. Have the guts needed, is crazy enough and manages to stay super motivated after a nutting himself hardcore:

Kim - Hardflip to fs nose to his nuts.. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Kim bs 180 and bs bigspin (A.B.Amble - 09)

Kim stoked on Koigen! (A.B.Amble - 09)

In the late afternoon we headed back home to Lillehammer, ate, and went out to scope some spots. We ended up with a few good once. Kim just have to sack up for a few of them. Still, Kim and Jarle did some flips and slides.

Kim 5-0 (A.B.Amble - 09)

Kim - ollie and architecture (A.B.Amble - 09)

Kim - Halfcab flip and kickflip - (A.B.Amble - 09)

After 8 hours skating the guys were tired and we headed back home to chill. But then we realized it was Wednsday, figured we at least could go out for a pint, ended up as a great night!

- and, more skate-pics will show up when we take the other skate-spots!
Click the pictures to enlarge.

National day!

2009-05-17T17:59:00.005+02:00

Outside my living-room when I got up today. (A.B.Amble - 09)

The traditions we have when it comes to celebrating the 17th of May are quite unique. It's fascinating to look out the window and down on the street outside. Packed with people in traditional costumes, flags, music, people eating ice-cream. Today we even had perfect weather, so collective celebration was complete. Old, young, from all over the place just gathering around the same simple setting. It's our national day!

Get up, dress up, get out! (A.B.Amble - 09)

People walking by in the afternoon (A.B.Amble - 09)

The celebrations starts early. Since I live down town it's hard to ignore this in the morning. The night before the 17th, the 16th, is a notorious party-night, so it's a tough start 9 in the morning waking up to drums, horn-music, cheers and kids on sugar. But what the heck, it's 17th of May!

On all these pics you see people in national costumes. There are many variations, all depending on where the costume is from. The general name is "bunad" along with their origin. "Fana bunad" is from outside Bergen, and so on. Guess I should get set with my "bunad" soon. They are pretty cool!

A family taking a break from the endless stroll up and down the streets. (A.B.Amble - 09)

My good friend Anders walking down the street in his "bunad" (A.B.Amble - 09)

Lilly - getting good!

2009-05-16T18:00:00.002+02:00

I remember my stoke when my sister started to shred on skis.
- now I see the same with Anders Murud. Same stoke. Guess there's something about brothers and the way of caring for their sisters? And both of 'em have the name Ida.. gotta be the reason!

Here is the edit of his sister, Lilly, rippin the trampoline. She's gonna get good. I'm telling you!

lilly hopper trampo from Anders Murud on Vimeo.

Back into the corner with buckets of paint

2009-05-12T13:57:00.008+02:00

Lillehammer looks the same. The chrome-shades are still present on the afternoon-sky. (A.B.Amble - 09)

Well, i guess "buckets" of paint is a slight ecsaduration. But the point is that I've finally gotten myself into the corner with my paint-brushes and I'm pretty stoked on that. Throughout the season I hardly find time to do this, so it's nice to have a few days off.

Pencils, brushes and paint lines up. After a pretty hefty clean-up the "creative-corner" looks pretty slick-n-clean. (A.B.Amble - 09)

So in between writing, working in excel and trying to get the plans for the next two months in place, this is a great pause. Now the paint and four canvases is my focus for the next three days.

Painting in process again.. this one has been on hold since 2005. (A.B.Amble - 09)

And oh yeah, I have to go ski sooon! Some serious urge going on here, and watching good spring-sessions really doesn't help. Thankfully, there's plenty of snow, and tons of opportunities ahead, so it'll work out. Until then, enjoy a little vid from the west-coast sessions, from Junction133:

West Coast Session: Day One from Junction 133 on Vimeo.

Tom Knox skate clip by Josh Knox

2009-05-05T18:22:00.002+02:00

Tom is Josh's younger brother, so when he dropped by his hometown London he spent one day making a film-clip with his brother. Time well spent if you as me!

Tom Knox Day In The Life from londonboy on Vimeo.

Oppdal trip: a ski-factory becoming a reality

2009-05-04T13:35:00.010+02:00

On our way over the mountains towards Oppdal, taken through my shades (A.B.Amble - 09)

This is one of those stories that are easy to tell.
A few weeks ago I brought my dad to Oppdal to visit a friend of mine. Endre lives 20 minutes outside the skitown Oppdal, and has great ambitions, and I have great expectations for what he is working on.

Endre (photo: A.B.Amble - 09)

Skiing is a pillar in the life of Endre Hals. He has a dedicated relationship towards skiing, enjoys his days on snow, but he is not content with only that. Endre is an engineer, and throughout the last few years he has built up great knowledge and understanding of construction and manufacturing of skis. Since he finished his master-degree on construction of skis through history, he set his goal to make the best skis possible. Prog skis is his brain-child.

The dedicated engineer is productive. Endre has built and designed most of the mashines himself.

I have to admit that I was skeptical. Endre obviously had great knowledge, but to start manufactoring skis is still quite a big thing. Endre on the other hand looked opun it as a great challenge, and now he has a operational ski-factory in his own barn, at the farm he and his lady bought two years back. It is far from finished, but all the production-tools are in place.

When this room has been restored the heavy duty mashines will be placed in here.

The factory is based on making custom skis, the production is as simple as it is impressive. In this little factory Endre manages to produce skis of the highest standard, with extra ordinary performance. Each ski made for each rider.

Endre and my dad (photo: A.B.Amble -09)

Length, width, camber or reversed camber, side-cut, tapers, high tips, low tips, rockers, stiffness and custom graphics. Yeah, you can get it all!

Two custom skis, both with double reinforced edges, rockers and tapers. One big-mountain ski and one park-ski.

The web-site will soon be operational for orders, but until then, drop by to see how his "Prog Custom ski program" (http://www.customprog.no/sider/untitled1.html)

Greatly inspired we got in the car and drove back home (A.B.Amble - 09)

JOSS recap and the weeks ahead!

2009-04-10T23:00:00.006+02:00

PK Hunder on the semi-floater (p: Dan Brown/Newschoolers)

It's safe to say that JOSS was great. Its great to see the teams and all the others work hard to get things done. And this is Jon Olsson's gig. He works around the clock, and no matter what others might say, he stands out as a working hero.

Two weeks of JOSS madness takes its toll though. It was intense and fun, but the last few days here at Dombås has given me some much needed time off. Tomorrow I'm going back to Lillehammer before I head over to Sauda. There I will attend the Sauda Back Country Challenge, and I'm really looking forward to it! Gonna be nice to get at least two competitions this year, specially since I had to work during both Hemsedal and Voss Freeride and pass on my bib-nr. Then I think I'm going compete during Ørsta X2 as well.. stoked on that! Drop by their web-sites. And notice the great layout and graphical work on the X2 site. I certainly did!

Semi-final face (p: Kjetil Vaage Øie)

link to Sauda BCC: click here
link to Ørsta X2: click here

There will be some more JOSS material popping out here later on, but for now you can watch the film-clip below, and read this article from day 10 of JOSS. The first picture gives you a glimpse of what the parties were like, and the last part gives you a solid impression of the magnitude of the Semi-floater jump. It was retarded, but looked like fun!

Me, pointing at Andreas Håtveit while biting the golden key.. good stuff! (p: Shay Williams/Freeskier)

Newschoolers article from Day 10! click here
JOSS and Jon Olsson web-sites: JOSS and Jon-Olsson

JOSS Åre-week edit!

2009-04-09T13:47:00.000+02:00

yup.. all week, one movie!

JOSS post 1!

2009-04-01T21:35:00.007+02:00

the JOSS bus and Jon's new lambo (photo: Erik Wibaeus)

Well, JOSS is a pretty pimp competition.

It has to be said that the scale of these jumps, the shape, the skiing, everything is simple impressive. The last one and a half week has been a mixed bag though, specially when it comes to the weather. Ice, wind, snow, bluebird, clouds, wind, more snow, crazy wind, PK won Sweet Rumble... STOOOKED! more wind, nice weather, more snow, faar too many pints and the longest bus-ride in the history of bus-rides. Just plain stupid!

Me and Drew chilling on the roof.. what else to do right? (photo: Thomas Kleiven/Fri Flyt)

Trysil to Åre took us a total of 17 hours! 7 of them where spent in and around the bus, at a gas-station just somewhere in between of nowhere. I really wonder if the place even has a name, because I couldn't find a sign with a name of the place, and the girl at the gas-station failed to tell us. Just to make things worse, the bus was filled with tons of hung over guys. The one and only thing that is to blame for this is the Sweet Rumble afterparty. Crazyness! So much fun, so much booze. And then afterparty in the hotel-appartment I had in Trysil... more crazyness!

And that appartment..! Huge.

Yeah, a really decent hotel-room! (photo: J.Schmuck/Newschoolers)

Well, moving onwards, Åre is still sick! And the session that went down today was rediculous! The JOI booter this year is a huge step-down, but it looks smooth. Low speed, and massive airs is what the audience likes though, and they will get it.. but footie from that ain't turning up today though. Maybe tomorrow.

Today has been kinda tough because a certain "rockerparty" last night..

Getting ready

Lots of booze! (Photos: Dan Brown)

Gonna get back with more edits as soon as they are done, but for now: Peace!

PK winning! (photo: J.Schmuck/Newschoolers)

I have two edits for you guys from JOSS:
JOSS Trysil part.1
JOSS Trysil part.2 and Sweet Rumble!
service provided by vidoy.no

Thanks to Jeff Schmuck, Thomas Kleiven, Erik Wibaeus and Dan Brown for pictures.
Visit www.kapitolphotography.com to watch more of Dan's pictures..!

A ledgend has passed away..

2009-03-27T00:23:00.003+01:00

The rumors spreads fast in a small community. It's less than two hours ago since I heard about it, and already lots of people give their respect and love to one of the most influencial charecters in the industry.

Shane skiing in Retallack (redbull)

Shane McConkey has been a ski icon for more than a decade, and stood out as a playful guy with a great deal of both humor and skills. I've only met him randomly twice, but know several that got to know him through work and travels. Sadly Shane McConkey had a base-jump related accident. He leaves the skiworld mourning, and my thoughts goes to his friends and most of all his family.

(photo: Dave LaPlante)

Megapark 2009 and now JOSS

2009-03-25T12:10:00.006+01:00

Ski-test and Megapark.

A good way of spending 2 weeks in Oppdal. Probably the best conditions for doing park and fat-twin tests ever. You see, the deal is that we don't want perfect weather and snow at all time. We want to test the skis, and this year we got to test them in all sorts of conditions. Ice, wind-packed, slush, perfect corduroy and fresh pow.

The public park at Megapark

Megapark this year met a few challenges due to lack of snow, so the big feature on top ended up being a hip, in stead of the huge booter the previous years. The park this year was sick, with 6 jumps in a line, was made to please more or less everybody.

Now I'm in Trysil to be here during JOSS and Sweet Rumble.
Also here the weather is challenging, but the guys are working hard which usually pays off!

"the Super Combo Kicker" i ettermiddagssolen i Trysil

Megapark-picture Endre Løvaas.
JOSS-pictures from Thomas T. Kleiven.

Travel, work, skiing and a few projects!

2009-03-06T21:00:00.001+01:00

Trysil, Lillehammer, Oslo, Lillehammer, Dombås, Oppdal, Lillehammer Trysil, Åre, Lillehammer, Dombås, Lillehammer, Trysil, Sauda... ?
I think that's the travel route I'm in the middle of. A mix of work, skiing, and more work. And hopefully lots of good times.

It's been a few demanding weeks, with tons of stuff needing attention, but I think I'm getting on top of things. Some of the main projects are looking good, and meanwhile I kinda had to decide to wait still another year before applying to the art academy, my creativity got some boost again, so I'm also feeding of that these days!

A quick little sketch, where the coloring of the black background took so much time! I need a massive and good marker. Hints-n-tips on where I can find one?

I'll get back with more and greater news soon, everybody involved just has to put their signatures on the papers first!

Meanwhile, here is a little edit I made from a trip me and Anders had to Trysil a week ago:

Calm Saturday!

2009-02-21T23:44:00.006+01:00

A second little addition to the "Touch of Nature"

Today has been simple.

First I had a long breakfast, including some texture search. You see, I am going to deliver a proposal for a graphical layout for someone. And it's is quite a wide specter of potential tasks, so I can let my imagination run free within the few boundaries that exists. Then after that I just made a sketch.

There is a reason for the "book-in-the-book" thing. I am trying to get a grasp on typography these days, and I am really fascinated by how beauty can stand out so strong with only a few measures of design and typography. On this sketch I haven't added any typography what so ever, but I work on spaces, and how to have several graphical elements on a page and still preserve harmony. A good design includes often some kind of harmony. This sketch on the other hand is just a sketch. It might reoccur in a more perfected edition, but for now it is just a sketch made while enjoying a glass of wine.

At least I am thinking of the matter.

In other news, it is snowing lots outside!
If my ankle feels good tomorrow I'll go out for a few runs in the trees before I pack my bags and go back to Lillehammer! Fresh snow and productivity: a good day!

New banner, playing with graphics, but have to sketch

2009-02-14T23:27:00.010+01:00

Touch of Nature is the work-title on my self-constructed training exercises. I need to get better, so this is my way.

Today, I have been a geek. Straight forward. I woke up today, third day of being sick. Bummed out because I couldn't go to either Lillehammer and the Uka-railjam (I was supposed to go there and help out and ski a bit) or the Mokaii show at the Oslo fasion fair (would be cool).

Mokaii Fall/Winter 2009/2010 (photo:HP Hval)

Thankfully I'm back at my parents house for still a few days, and my mom baked and made food all day.
-
So, I've been sitting in front of the Mac's and makin stuff. The blog-header is "under construction"... not finished yet, but it's getting there. Some small changes will occour. I have worked on this thing for Kvitfjell, and some other stuff. More clothing designs are being made, but most ends up in the trash-bin.

My playground today

Tomorrow I hope I'm well enough to get outside. Get a few runs in the slopes and go out on a little search mission to find cool spots to get some cool ski/snow pics when the sun returns later this week. A new week of work, skiing, graphical work, getting a few new sketches done and get my thighs a bit stronger. It's going to be a good week!

Outside, grey but a mellow temperature and plenty of snow!

Whistler seen from Lillehammer

2009-02-11T22:27:00.008+01:00

Me and Jamie hiking on Blackcomb

One year from tomorrow, in the retrospect of what went down fifteen years ago. That is what the mysterious title is all about. But if you still don’t get it I’ll fill you in: The last three years I’ve lived in Lillehammer, and the last winters I’ve visited/stayed in Whistler BC. So what do these places have in common? The Olympics.

Opening ceremony in Lillehammer

On Friday it’s fifteen years ago since the Lillehammer Olympics opening ceremony, where the audience was thrilled while my older sister was very cold. Wearing a traditional dress while playing a violin in 20 below might not be the best combo. Good show anyway. One thing is clear, the Olympics changed Lillehammer dramatically. This small town by the “Mjøsa” lake became a tourist hot-spot, a regional shopping destination and the Olympic facilities and the status “Olympic host city” made the place worthy a visit all by itself.

For Lillehammer’s sake it quite a few things got better. A little town, limited developed, that had to adapt and create offers for all the visitors. Plenty of bars, a decent clean & shape-up, lots of new buildings to place new businesses in, and lots of capital placed there to make the town vivid and dynamic, also after the games.

Al is enjoying the Whistler-goods. (photo: Andreas B. Amble 2005)

So what about Whistler? Will the Olympics give Whistler the same pay-offs? Many of the locals I know are skeptical, but I never got to be a part of a more in-depth discussion on this matter in Whistler last year, so I’ll try to discuss the matter myself. To me it’s quite clear that a lot of the benefits Lillehammer got from the Olympics, was because Lillehammer is a small city that function for the once who lives there, it is a living complex community. Whistler on the other hand is already a machine made to build up profit, made to please the rich tourists, where the locals happens to be those folk who work for this machine, roughly. Fortress (the owner) will earn quite a bit of cash, while the inhabitants will get restrictions, less space and even more pressure.
On the other hand, a huge even like this might force Whistler to grow even more, hosting a bigger community that will grow into a bigger and more influential force, reducing the power monopoly that Fortress holds today. The infrastructure and the service offers will become better, and locals will benefit from this. But what is the outcome?

Al and Charley chilling at the stairs in Creekside after a long day on the hill.

I really don’t know the answer. I guess I will have to wait until after the Olympics before I see what the change will be. Thankfully, the place has some of the best inbounds and out of bounds skiing in the world. And if they don’t take away the qualities of the place, keep the characteristics and the climate blesses the place with good winters, I will probably be back, but most likely not during the Olympics. I'll enjoy that from the couch!

First day of 13 at Dombås.

2009-02-09T22:29:00.003+01:00

Wonderful simple day.

Get up, have a slow breakfast with my mom, get my ski-clothes on and head out.Back home to work and ski.

Focus: Redesign of Sweet Protection and Sweet Rumble!

2009-02-04T19:23:00.004+01:00

Sweet Protection is a Norwegian Brand with roots deep in the freeride and snowboard-scene. Terje Håkonsen has been contributing over several years. They have always had great appeal among the big mountain and kayak-folks, but the jibbers have for some time been outside their main-costumers. But things are changing. With Tom Wallisch, Alexander Aurdal and several other jibbers on team the focus has also moved towards the more baggy clothes. It was quite clear that something was happening when they started to hunt for jibbers, and with large hoodies popping up, but their outerwear remained short, and of a more slim design, until now. As I see it has never been their lack of focus on the jib scene, it has more been a result of a learning-curve to learn how it should be done to combine their technical finesse and the baggy style.A solid proof of Sweet Rumble, the competition. This year they once again serve us a great competition, only this time much greater! The startlist is impressive and the set-up way better, so be ready for it the 14th of March!

The 2009/2010 collection is going to be a full spectre collection, from a core brand, to all the riders. Big mountain, carving cruisers, park-rats and backcountry jibbers. Here is a sneak peak on some of the clothes, and a little taste of their stand at ISPO.

For all the gear-geeks!

2009-02-04T18:33:00.003+01:00

SIA og ISPO, the grand trade-shows are in the spotlight these days. All the new gear is out on display and victims for critique. Sometimes harsh, sometimes endless cheers along the way. I'll focus on the positive sides.
Shoutout to Armada for their new clothes. I've seen Kim and Lasse in those clothes for a while, but they are sick. Simply put, and it's pretty cool that Kim had a big poster at SIA. The Alpha skis from Armada are sick, the Eric Pollard skis and Dakine set-up is sweet! Still a fan of that guy.

Backpack and gloves from Dakine, and skis from Line. NICE!

Nordika has some great grephic-work on their new park-skis. They won the Fri Flyt parkski test last year, so they proclaim the quality with 6 on the dice in the graphics?

But still, some of the things thats stuck on my mind is the Full Tilts and the new Sweet clothes, and stoked that Whiteout keep going strong!

I do a follow-up on the Norwegian brand Sweet and their new products for the more baggy part og the ski and snowboard-world!

Simply Kvitfjell!

2009-01-29T21:10:00.004+01:00

Kvitfjell is sick!

Really!

The old year! (part 1.)

2009-01-04T22:52:00.011+01:00

And here is the old one.. a little retrospect of my year in pictures.

January was all about work, art and skiing:Vaset

February too:Blackcomb High Level park. Got a little tired of Norway, so I jumped on a plane.

March the same:Whistler backcountry

April, nothing different:Megapark
Skitest in HafjellMe and Lasse being childishLillehammer afternoon.

May:Walking the slack-line in the park
The old man on his daily roundØystein enjoying the view My younger sister know how to partyThe 17th of May parade

June:Juvass parkCharley working on that clean shape

July:Decorating the Aloha store in Oslo

Happy holidays folks!

2008-12-23T13:10:00.002+01:00

A little pattern-play from last night

The holidays are back...!
Gifts, winter, having a cold, children crying in front of toy-stores, lots of old men dressed up in costumes singing, going back home to enjoy some calm nice days with the family, and not being able to attend to all the stuff you want to. Stoked friends, many parties, some I can't attend, others I will, late nights and ambitious plans for the following day.

In others news, got a funny mail today: "I think you can recall two months ago, you were taken a snapshots in Oslo by a Chinese fashion magazine."My friend Hans Jakob and I in the outtake form the Chinese magazine.

Have fun, eat well, ski, party, play games, in the snow or what ever you do this Christmas! Just remember to enjoy!

Weekend burnout

2008-12-21T21:52:00.003+01:00

Click on the image to go to photo-special on Tacky.no. Rider: Sondre "Stylemaster" Tiller Photo: Olav Stubberud - http://www.olavstubberud.com/

This weekend at Hafjell was more or less craziness reincarnated, but first it was Firday and Kvitfjell. The olympic arenas from 1994 was the setting this weekend I guess, and it all started a little further up the valley. Kvitfjell was the down-hill and super-g arena during the games in 94, and now it’s a quiet resort, with corduroy gromers, big pine-trees and a decent annual snowfall. To make things better it also has some steep flanks and plenty of potential fun and maybe even scary skiing. It’s renown for the slopes, they are great, but there are also quite a few things outside that trigger my interest.

All to myself, all day!

Eight days so far this season has been spent in Kvitfjell. Exploring and shredding: a great and childish combination. I found a whole bunch of things I want to do later on, even some big things. Cliffs, flanks, pillows, it’s there, just need the right snow. Finally got to ski under the chairlift at the top on Friday, which is a mellow and fun run. Lots of small cliffs, some with rather flat landings, quite a bit of tree-stubs still, some rocks to wear down my edges and all that, but still good times, specially since I had it all to myself! When that place gets a little more snow, ooh yeah!

And by the way: There’s more stuff going down with Kvitfjell, but I’ll get back to that later.

Hafjell on Saturday was just crazy! Tacky threw down a good competition and Hafjell opened the entire park. The fog made an honest attempt to destroy the day, but failed. The park was fun, the competition was good and the party later that night was even better! Props to Tacky and all of the people for such a good night! Let me put it like this: "We partied like it was 1994!"

Today was easy: fruit, coffee, milk, films and music.

Tomorrow: jib-day in Hafjell for my 29th day on skis so far this season!

Sunday tea and Lister

2008-12-07T15:11:00.002+01:00

Anthony Lister

Sunday self-service: food, something warm to drink on a cold December day. It's cold outside, beautiful, but cold. Nice to sit inside, work on small projects and just enjoy the day.

And a A.Lister-piece always helps!

Inspiration

2008-11-26T21:11:00.006+01:00

Hafjell today

These days I seek inspiration for a lot of things:
- Articles
- Graphical design
- Typography; got to learn way more
- Art
- Skiing
- and quite a few others things

So I've been spending plenty of time looking for in-put everywhere. Articles, art-magazines, web-pages, taking pictures, skiing.. lots of snow outside, and speaking with friends with great skills in the fields mentioned above.

Well, it works: productivity and skills are improving.

Speaking of art:

Found these Faile woodn rolls a while ago, but the amount of time they gotta spend on making these is still pretty darn impressive!

In other news:
My web-page and the first PDF-magazine is dropping soon. Spending quite a few hours putting that stuff together.

Oh, skiing is still fun, just if you haven't figured that out yet.Jump! Hangtime! Shifty!

Bjorli November 2008

Bjorli last weekend, with tons of pow, then Dombås with a little less pow, Kvitfjell and the best groomer-day in quite some time, and Hafjell today with jumps, epic light and fresh snow!

Some reflections!

2008-11-12T01:58:00.003+01:00

While me and Joel was out for a stroll yesterday I found some fun reflections.
Got to like them!

Out for a stroll around Lillehammer

2008-11-10T18:28:00.006+01:00

On Saturday I woke up at 8, tried to get somebody motivated over the cell, failed, but still managed to head up to Kvitfjell with my friend Jarle. A short patch of snow, one jump, one box and two rails and kinda crappy weather in early November... Super day!!

And today, after some work, we just walked around in Lillehammer. Nice to be tourist in my own town. Great light today as well, and an enthusiastic turist in Joel made for a large quantity of pictures of mediocre quality. Added some pics from a railsession the other day as well. Good times in Lillehammer.

And two more great days!

2008-10-08T01:19:00.008+02:00

Bonk!

One day of snow isn't enough. Thankfully Uhlar (the norse snow-god) decided that I could keep it a little longer. So I built a small jib in the backyard! I put up lights and brought the camera up and rigged it by the start of the drop-in. I put the camera on timer-release, strapped my boots on, clicked into my skis, pushed the button on the camera and counted: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 and go!

Fun, lots of fun! So many failed attempts, but a few ok frames. Well, who cares, fun in the snow in early October. I even extended my visit at my parents house to have fun out here!

Ski - bonk- land...

And: it's -4*C outside, so there probably gonna be one more day!

All pictures by me.

Such a wonderful day!

2008-10-05T20:12:00.009+02:00

Today I woke up to a world covered in a soft white blanket. Thats one of those times when I realize how simple my mind really is. Ive been a happy kid all day!

First me and my dad had to change tires, get some spikes for traction on that car. Then I took the skis in the trunk, a shovel, got my boots, while dad brought the camera: and there you have it, the perfect set-up for a banger day!

A fun tiny tap and the mountains in the background.

The road, a little build and the valley from our house.

Sweet day! hehe

The result of a waiting-room

2008-10-03T08:40:00.003+02:00

Waiting-rooms has one purpose, as a place to wait. This time I really didn't mind sitting there, and I guess that's why I got kinda creative and picked up some paper and started to draw.

- Two months ago I got a request to do a charicature of the main employees of a company, something I had never done before, and I found it so hard to make charicatures, and I more or less swore that I would never expose myself to such frustration again.

It must have been my state of mind, happy and content, that made me do it again. And it turned out pretty good.

In between places

2008-10-01T23:54:00.002+02:00

The fall is hopeless like this. I've been up, around and everywhere. Not really, but back and forth is defenetly on point. Lillehammer - Oslo - Dombås - Lillehammer - Oslo - Dombås - Juvass - Dombås - Lillehammer - Oslo -Dombås, something like that. You get the picture. Fun to work with various things though. Be creative, evolve and thrive while doing a wide span of different jobs. I won't keep on like this for ever, but for now this is the way I learn the most.

Well, just came over a little flick by Gabby, the little ski-thug now living in Lillehammer. Little-dirt keeps getting better, progressing like the rest of the Norwegian youngster-league: like crazy! Edit from Juvass.

Good 'ol lazy Sunday

2008-09-28T18:44:00.006+02:00

I guess I'm not alone being a little bit reduced at the end of the week. Now I'm trying to finish my work at the Aloha Hemp office. Still some work left, but the speed of progress isn't peaking out right now, so it's going to be a long lazy night!

It's fun though! hehe

The last week I've attended two and a half premiere. A week ago the ski and snowboard-scene gathered for the Field Production premiere on Get Lucky, and be warned. Crazy good movie!
Gotta watch it a couple of times before I write the review, but i just have to leak a little enthusiasm here!

This weekend there was premieres on Level 1's Turbo, Abtinthe's latest release Ready and norwegian Factor Films' Notes. Turbo is packed with hefty skiing, Ready is probably the shit and Notes I have no clue about, since I went back up to the Fri Flyt party. Heard they didn't screen the movie before 01.30 due to a lot of mess with the venue. I really wanted to see Ready by Absinthe, but the DV-screening tape didn't work, a big bummer, but still, the party went off. Great party!

PK has been standig up for the Norwegian colors, and him self i guess, this weekend. At Freestyle.ch he came up second, after battling Jakob Wester for the win. PK held the grab longer, Wester went bigger. Could've been both that took the win, but still, congrats on solid start on a new season PK! (Fri Flyt article here, and NS article here)

Just saw the TWS skate & create Winner DVS, pretty darn impressive! Sick flick!
The link to the embeded video is broken, so here's the site: http://skateboarding.transworld.net/2008/08/15/tws-skate-create-dvs/

Juvass trip part 1

2008-09-12T16:49:00.002+02:00

I have just returned from Juvass, such a great weekend with good snow, perfect weather and sick lodging. I'm going to return with more pictures and text in a day or two, but for now you can take a look at this picture to get the idea of what fall parkskiing i Norway all of a sudden is all about!

So stoked that Juvass all of a sudden became a resort for parkskiing throughout the summer and their gonna keep it up until the first resorts opens this season!

Norway = all year skiing!

I wanna ski!

2008-08-26T22:59:00.006+02:00

Sitting her doing graphical work and trying to work through planty of pages for some articles, and even though it's been hard to keep my focus from time to time I'm totally lost right now!
I wanna shred that pow, slash some turns, shifties, cruising, scary lines and jumps. I want all of that so bad right now! Well, gotta take a glass of water and get back to the endless documents on my mac here.

For u guys, here's some reminders of how fun snow really is:

The picture above is of Joe by the Whistler based Photographer Dan Carr, a british guy that produces great snow and bike-pictures: drop by his page to see more of his work! DanCarrPhotography.com

Zac Merben; "welcome to the Ashbury-team"-video
link to Transworld Snowboarding: click here

for those of u who still hasn't seen this:

A Little Crappy Hood Edit from Bentley Atteberry on Vimeo.

the fall to come

2008-08-24T01:18:00.008+02:00

It's not here yet, but we know that it's just lurking around the corner. The weathers is still tretty darn nice, and it feels like I should squeeze in as much time outside in the sun as possible before summer's gone and winter's still just some distant future... Well, thankfully we got rails. Spent some time on them last fall.. after a season without rails, railing that fall was kinda a funky experience. Didn't put too much effort into it, but I kinda wanna get my stoke on with that this fall.. if nothing else it's just chill times with good friends.. At least it's something worth doing while thinking back on good times from last season, and planning new stuff for next winter.

Art is gonna be a bit part of this fall as well. I'm done with school, so now new and bigger projects are commin together. Made some sketches, found some new things i wanna have fun with, and if it all workes out with sufficient cash I've got a good new project to work on all fall.. Feels like it's about time, so i guess it's about time to step up and produce some decent art! hehe

until then, here's two drawings and a quick (15 min) sketch and two views: one in Lillehammer taken through my Dragon shades, and one from back at Dombås.

quik-camp recap

2008-08-09T17:50:00.006+02:00

You know that feeling of success. Relief, excitement and a whole pack of enthusiastic kids. Well, that's what I've got after this summer at Juvass. To start fresh with a new resort is kind of refreshing, but also terrifying. I know we had a deal on the paper, but the question was how much of a struggle it would be to get there. Let me put it like this: I really can't find a single thing to bring up as an issue. I put down a crazy amount of time to get the park up and going, and it was great to have Charley coming with a helping hand. For a first timer Juvass stands strong. Proving itself as a worthy competitor as a summer-park resort, and Juvass has a really good card up the sleeve. Juvass is open until October.

Field Production, Factor films, Key Films and tons of small web-flicks from the glacier says it all. We managed to create a park with flow and something for all levels! The camp worked out great, the weather treated us fine the second week as well, and we could all look back on a week of great progression and lots of stoked kids.

I have to give a huge shout-out to all the kids, and Jo, Øystein, Per Arne and the rest of the crew at Juvass/Galdhøpiggen skisenter!

Quik week one

2008-07-05T11:49:00.006+02:00

Quiksilver camp session one is over. The kids are gone, while Charley, Gabby and Adi are layin flat out after a long demanding week. Intense and cool. That's how it is. Fifty plus kids throwin down and progressing just far too fast.. Why can't I have that curve of progression?

Well, I guess we are stoked! The concept works and the kids seem to thrive.
I'm posting a few pictures from the week. More is to be found at the Facebook group.

New Aloha Store!

2008-07-05T10:42:00.008+02:00

The 10th of July the new Aloha Hemp store in Oslo opens up!

I would love to be there, for many reasons. One is that I want to be there to support 'em. They'll do just fine without, but I really wanna be there. I also wanna be there so see the response of the work I've done on the front wall of the store. This decoration will grow throughout the summer. And I wanna be there to party with the crew. Good luck!

The store is to be found in Markveien 56.

Juvass update nr 1.

2008-06-21T16:26:00.009+02:00

Oh yeah, it's summer time, and a signed worth trusting is the Quiksilver camp. Well, for me that is anyway. I've been talking to Øystein, the cat driver, up on the glacier and his rapports seem pretty darn promessing! The park is not finished, we're doing that the final days before the camp starts, but it's all going smoothly and soon we can shred a great park built the way I want it. Flow and access for all levels are the main focus, while quality and performance is mandatory!

At the 29th the first camp starts. A few days ahead the coaches gather at Juvass to ride and get familiar with our new playground, and together with the hill, make the final touch before the campers turn up.

Ski and snowboard together, we will bring atmosphere, steep learning-curves and a great playground. Our goal is to be better, bigger, more fun and easy accesable. Beginners and professionals in blended together in one big unit.

Here you guys got 5 pictures from a week ago. This was before we started to build the large elements, but it gives you an idea of the area and quality of the shape and build.

Visit:
http://quiksilvercamp.no/
http://friflyt.no/index.php?pagenr=12&zone=100&category=1008&subcategory=5
and our group on facebook!

fun with fold-outs, pop-ups and paper

2008-06-12T10:26:00.001+02:00

My friend LK, (senseless.blogg.no) posted av wonderful vid from a pop-up book on the alphabet, and after flickin' through some vids I came over "Shitdisco/Reactor party", and their music-vid:

link

Springtime in Lillehammer

2008-05-20T19:03:00.006+02:00

These days I’ve been sitting on my balcony out towards the pedestrian street in Lillehammer. Sitting here working on the parkski-test for the magazine Fri Flyt, while watching all the folks passing by. I have to say that I am impressed by the dynamic life in this little town. These days the ”Russerfeiring” has had it’s last vigorous days, ending the 17.th of May. To explain “Russ”: before the students graduate their 13.th year at school, they have a month of childish rituals and parties. This is always a subject for loud discussions in the national medias, but for me it doesn’t take more than to look outside and observe at all the fun they have, and what role they play in Norwegian springtime. The kids trying to collect their cards with all those pranks they probably can’t understand yet. The sun is out yet again. This day was supposed to be all gray, but yet again the sun manages to sneak out behind the clouds.

Yeah life is good with a cup of tea right here, no matter how strange it feels to work on writing a well-rounded text for the various parski-models we tested a few weeks ago. The forms we filled out does thankfully provide me sufficiently with quotes and experiences from myself og the other testriders. This is only the beginning though. We always have a goal to keep on developing these tests, to make them more relevant and easier to understand. Now I’ve also started on writing three other articles, so I have to use the creative flow and get them over with. To get a brake I usually take a trip over to “One hand clapping”, or “Blå”, to chill out for a while. Maybe I’ll drop by the park and have some fun on a slack-line.

Still, I guess the most significant thing going down these last few days are the 17.th of May, the national day of Norway. And trust me, we know how to celebrate this like no other nation. Of course, people are partying, but the main thing is the number of people out in the streets, all dressed up. Music in the streets, national costumes in all it’s various editions, depending on the costumes origin in Norway. It is something typically Norwegian. We are all out there cheering, no matter how old, young, hung over, drunk or sober. In addition my younger sister came back from Hawaii (she is the one with the wig on the pictures below) and came straight over to pay me and her local friends a visit. Been quite some time since I was her last time, so that was cool of her to drop by, and we know how to party toghether, so yeah! Springtime here is just wonderful!

All in all I guess you guys can just lean back and enjoy the pictures.

Not familiar with slack-line, check out http://www.slakkline.no/, also in English and German.

Turtagrø Highcamp

2008-05-14T21:57:00.010+02:00

Every year Fri Flyt has a big venue at Turtagrø hotel and the surrounding mountains. High Camp at Turtagrø is the original that has spread out to 4 more events throughout the season and country. This is my fourth time there, and this year was a blast, just like every other year. Still, this year was a little bit special since last year contained of chilling on the porch and shuttling people due to my then freshly split spleen. Well, this year I was back in shape and had great ambitions. It was a slight bummer that the North faces was sketchy and slid sooner than I would
allow myself to drop into. The risk was just too high. So that excluded the two lines I had in mind when I came up there, but still, I had a blast!

This year, just like last year, my dad showed up. My mom couldn't this year due her recent eye-surgery, but it's nice that my dad came to represent. My dad and his buddy was one of the 450 participants, but there was a huge load of people just hanging around, so I guess the total number was aprox. 700. Good times in the mountains. After a few good days on snow Sunday came, with a Magnet concert and the annual DJ skivebrems-party! Everything except from that asshole we had to throw out was just perfect!

Also very stoked on the fact that I managed to get my buddy Øystein up there, give him a new experience and include him more in the Fri Flyt-crew. We even got to built a small jump and have some fun goofing around for a couple of hours! Yeah, good times!

To finish off: got to senseless.blogg.no and see L-K's pictures from highcamp, from the traverse-trip we did on Wednsday.

then I went to Hemsedal

2008-05-02T14:44:00.007+02:00

Hemsedal is a great place. Simply put. Always tons of fun and decent riding. This spring was no exception. Dropped by Hemsedal for a few days this previous weekend. I was supposed to go and compete in Sauda Back Country Challenge, but the weather-forecast was horrible, so I stayed in Hemsedal en enjoyed the sun instead. Bummed that Sauda didn´t work out, but stoked on the good weather and the good parties in Hemsedal. Of course I got way too eager the last days and overshot a jump fuckin my ankle once again, so I had to skip going to Røldal this weekend.

Well, still snow out there, so I'm hoping to get something done next week. Going to Turtagrø and the big mountains, so there should be possibilities. There is tons of snow there, and we´re gonna go up on Tuesday, so we have plenty of time to get something done!

Here's a few pics from Hemsedal. Good times!

a little input

2008-05-02T12:49:00.004+02:00

Once in a while it's nice with some good input. I have a selection of blogs and site's I got to on a regular basis, just to see what other folks are up to. Good input for more inspiration.

http://www.straydog.cc/ provides tons of that!

Quiksilver-camp Trysil

2008-04-29T11:46:00.011+02:00

The Quicksilver-camp in Trysil was a intimate and really cool session. Adi, Hans-Jakob and myself had a little pack of kids to take care of and the weather was great. We came on Thursday night and it was a three day camp. The lodging was great, the food proper and the riding solid!

Have to give lots of cred to the kids for throwing down. Actually trying hard to progress. Sadly a kid got injured the first day, but he took it like a man. The rest of the time, the kids progressed, got new tricks, better style and so on. The general term: "it´s all in the basics" was printed into their innocent minds, and it worked!

Thanks to all for a great weekend. I know that all of us coaches and the quiksilver-crew enjoyed it. Hope to see you guys later, for instance at the summer-camp at Juvass?!

The Lillehammer-week

2008-04-16T04:32:00.010+02:00

The Living-room Project part.3: catching up on old work

2008-04-15T23:21:00.005+02:00

Yeah, you know that once i a while you've got a project that just stalls, that you never really manage to finish off. This is of course something that can occur in many aspects of live. I´m not saying that it's not the case in my life, but this time I'll keep the focus on the subject of art. So today I took one old picture off the wall, it´s one of my good older pictures that I still have, from the fall 2005 when I decided to learn how to draw faces proper. Drew faces for 20 days straight. Yup, I was unemployed, but I never finished the drawing. Now I've been working on it for a few hours tonight, and it´s better, thankfully.

I've got a new painting lined up, ready for some work to try to cap things off. They can't stay unfinished for ever. I´ll throw them out on the great and wide web as soon as they have received their portion of attention. Until then: here the result of the face-lift.

Back to the Norwegian winter!

2008-04-07T19:42:00.005+02:00

The last two weeks has been spent at Dombås and Oppdal. Going back home is always great. To be back with my family and meeting up with my old friends back home. I challenged Arne Christian to go out and shred, but I guess he was not entirely solid on his feet the next morning! We’ll catch up later. Oppdal has been non-stop than 10 weeks. Looking forward to chilling with the skiing for 11 days straight now. First fat-twin-test, then Megapark, which ended today. Now it’s back to Lillehammer for the first time in more Lillehammer crew. Miss them and the place now. My dear bed, the stereo, Lasse the Danish daredevil, all the folks from school and all the rest. I’m also looking forward to shredding in the local resorts the next week. Hafjell is the place, and I’m just hoping for some more sun. My goggle-tan is solid, but it can always get better.

Fun playing around in the park these days. Haven’t done much of that this season, so Megapark and Oppdal has been a good playground these last two weeks. Working on some new stuff as well, and it’s probably about time to get some tricks back. It’s soon Sauda Backcountry Challenge, and I wanna do ok, so I should get my game-mode on! I just hope that the jumps and the snow will allow for what I have in mind. Nothing crazy, I’m going for stylish, solid and a little bit newschool jibberish stuff.

The fat-twin-test went down in proper manner. Great variation in the snow-conditions, so I can say already that the test was pretty legit. Megapark was by far the best with such good flow in the park, lots of kids, lots of snow, lots of good riding and a few competitions. Both field and the Isenseven/pleasure crews were they’re shooting, so there will be footie on the big screen as well. And of course, a really great party on Saturday! As always! And now, quite a few pictures from these last few weeks!

Reality-check

2008-04-06T21:58:00.002+02:00

These last few weeks has been a combo of travel, getting home, taking a stand for my future and having fun. It’s pretty widely spread, and I know it can sound tacky, but that’s how it is. Even though I am, and seem like, an easy going guy, that tries to enjoy the moment, I usually have a deeper awareness as well, and once in a while I get confronted with my actions and the choices that I make.
This time education, personal development and simply, what to do next were the subject on center-stage. I loved the start of my education at Lillehammer one and half year ago, but my development at the subject I picked has changed and I have to confront myself with this. I’m dropping out, I guess that is as simply put as possible. I don’t want to waste yet another year on a study that sounds correct, but provides me with no further personal and professional development in the ways I find important myself.

From now on my focus will be put into the skiing scene and the pursuit of perfection in the graphical aspect. These are the things I want to work with, and they provide me with the drive I need to develop and to enjoy what I do.

Whistler, and back'

2008-03-27T21:54:00.010+01:00

Right now i'm sitting here in a couch in Oppdal. Not too bad snow, great weather and a good crew. Skiing tons of hours every day here now. Yeah good times.

A week ago I was packin my bags, getting ready for departure from Whistler. Good times and as always, a tough goodbye. I gotta give the Whistler crew a big shout-out, thanks! Peter and Jenny, guys, you shouldn´t spoil me like that! hehe.. Thanks a lot!

Charley, Sherpa, the Creekside gang, good times! And Stack, you are a crazy guy!

Then back home to a great and long weekend at Dombås. Snow, skis, family, food and friends. The perfect combo after quite a few weeks away from Norway. Our house back in Dombås is just the perfect ski in ski out, and such great dining! Lovin it!

Now it´s back to the more work-side of skiing, but I´m getting plenty of skiing done, so it´s all good! Now still one more week of skiing and then it´s Megapark, in all it´s glory. Then Hemsedal, somewhere else, maybe Turtagrø, Sauda and then back to the big mountains.

Hemlock trip

2008-03-02T23:46:00.007+01:00

Hemlock and Lord of the Park. It all seemed like a good reason to head out to this tiny resort east of Vancouver. Well, the hill was fun, small and weird, just the way I like it. The show-up was impressive. A great line-up. The weather was strange, but OK. The jump on the other hand didn´t even work. The rails did thankfully entertain most of the skiers throughout the day. Theory-3 was supposed to shoot on the jump the next day, but there was no hope for getting it worth while for the next day, so we went back. In the car on our way back home I became aware of the the light in the valley ahead of us, and soon after Jeff saw a lightning and I was all about taking pictures for quite some time.. as you can see below...

Link for those who can read Norwegian, here´s a Fri Flyt blog post i wrote today.

Whistler park-update

2008-02-28T10:39:00.005+01:00

This last week there has been tons of bluebird days and we have been playing around in the park a lot with good friends. And hey, when there is sun and good jumps.. are anybody capable of not being stoked?! well, not me!

The Living-room Project part. 2

2008-02-05T17:44:00.001+01:00

This weekend was without skis due to a rather hefty crash at Filefjell 9 days ago, but I´m healing up, and i´ve gotten my creative flow back. Guess it´s not the worst of deals. Here you´ve got a few pictures to show off the progress on this last drawing. It´s gonna be a part of a big montage of drawings and paintings.

A visit to Vaset

2008-02-03T12:32:00.000+01:00

Vaset isn´t exactly the biggest and most visited ski-resort in Norway, but Vaset is a decent sized traditional spot for mountain-cabins, with a small ski-hill, about 20 minutes north of Fagernes. The entire hill contains of two lifts and 4 slopes, and that´s it!

Saturday the 26th we got in the car and drove up. I have to admit my expectations were kind of limited, but I like small destinations and had a positive attitude. It turned out Vaset is easy to like. Not for skiing crazy lines or go big in the park, but they still had a pretty decent set-up of rails and three ok jumps. The park was super compact and perfect for hiking. And that we did… lots of it! Add a nice layer of fresh on top and everything was in place for a playful day. And, to say the least, it’s bin a while since I’ve put an effort into rails, but here I had pretty much no choice, specially when I was coaching Christina on improving her skills on rails, and she just charged so hard! Just “giver-style”! Damn! Impressed on attitude and progress.

And Vaset really has put a great effort into getting good rails, specially since this hill is tiny! Flat-rails, down-rails, a small staircase, a wall-ride, a c-box, two flat-boxes, a kick/up-rail and a kink box.

Saturday was just a fun day, simply put. Just playing around, having kids stoking us, and they where stoked as well! Two kids just joined us after a while, being 11 or 12 maybe. Super cool kids, humble and yeah, stoked. Lots of kids in general there. And Vaset’s slogan is quite suitable: “The ski-hill for the entire family and park enthusiasts.”

The Living-room Project

2008-02-01T17:18:00.001+01:00

I´ve started on something big. Or, big enough... I´m gonna decorate the entire living-room.. It´s 50 sq meters and with four walls, so I guess I have plenty of time-consuming work ahead! Fun though! Finished with two large pieces, and here is a few pictures of the last one:

It´s all gonna end up as one big collage, so it´ll be entertaining to see what it looks like.
I have no plan, I just draw and paint and cut and glue it together

Fri Flyt article from my Hometown

2008-01-14T16:21:00.000+01:00

The last weekend in 2007 me and a couple of friends tried to be productive at Dombås, my hometown. So I brought some of my good friends and made and article for the Fri Flyt web-page: and here is a rough translation:

"Even though rails and bomb-drop's are often refered to as "urban", this term really doesn´t fit for Dombås. But, a little pittoresque charm ads a little extra to the whole setting. We were ready for a mission and stuffed our trunks with our skis, snowboards, photo-gear, shovels, lights and a good dose of motivation. Our plan was to do it all on one day, so early Saturday morning we all god up and went to the local hill. But not even a cat and some hard labor could compensate for what the changes in the temperature had done. The snow was more or less ice on the jumps and the rails, so we couldn't do much up there.

Knut Myking, Morten Siljehaug, Anders Backe, Ida Amble (my sister), Vegard Breie and myself packed everything back into the cars and went down to an old German bunker from WW2. From the roof and down we built a step-down.

The gray weather turned into a nice and cozy little dump of snow, the mood and stoke in the crew grew, and the bunker step-down proved itself to be a good location. The base was soft, the landing short, the in-run was moguls and we kept getting wacked from bushes in the landing, in other words, everything was perfect! And, the by faar most priceless picture of the day got taken here, as Morten understood he was about to eat shit, closed his eyes ans screamed!

After a while we had to admit that the bunker was done for and we moved to an industrial area with a few bomb-drop's and Vegard found a window he wanted to use as a reflective surface in a picture. We all had a few go's, but it was Anders Backe, Morten Siljehaug and Knut Myking which had the biggest enthusiasm for this feature. The bomb-drop lasted for a few more hours, before we moved on to a flat-bar to bomb-drop project we had some fun on for a while! A productive and fun day was over in the snow, so the turned off the lights and said thanks after a long day on skis and snowboards.

Good times! So with the spread-eagle picture of my sister, I call it a day, and hope you enjoyed it!

All pictures courtesy to Vegard Breie

Snooooow!

2008-01-08T22:47:00.000+01:00

So the winter is really here! It´s great with December fun in the snow, but it´s something special with January snow.. Shredding in fresh snow in a new year is a wonderfull clishé! Like today.. at 2 o´clock we finally made it up to Skeikampen, and had 2 hours of great pow skiing!

New skis, that´s just rad! Helps a lot as well! Stoked on em! LINE: EP pro, LINE Elizabeth, LINE Anthem and soon I´ll get Line EP Sir Francis Bacon. Gonna test the Marker Duke and Jester in a more extended way this season. Looking forward to that. Look has served me well all these years, but it´s nice to try something else, and the Jester looks like a decent attempt to make a good freeride binding.

At Fri Flyt I just got an article from our little one-day-session at Dombås the day before new years eve: An English version will be posted on the page in a little while.. in the meanwhile you can chew on these pictures. One of me and one of my buddy Anders Backe on two of the features we played on that day!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-05T14:22:00.000+01:00

Happy new year everybody!

The new year starts just the way we like it, with lots of fresh snow! It´s dumping in entire Norway right now and it´s supposed to continue for at least another week! Guess I have to get a little snow expedition going!

Dang, I´m sick! Hate to be ill like this... not to bad, but my head is barely functional and I can´t go to work or ski! So I´m stuck here with a few cups of tea and my laptop! The result, well my blog got a new look: wider and lighter...

The article about the wallride and the rails I made are out on Fri Flyt.. fun, even though Erlend use quite big words! hehe.. Here is also picture of the entire Hemsedal wallride:

An alternative way of celebration

2007-12-24T12:49:00.000+01:00

There are various ways of celebrating Christmas. I don´t know if it was the good spirit of Christmas that caught me, but last night I sat down and drew a few fast drawings.. and here you go!

The bum, the beatn chick and the hooker.
- Merry Christmas!

The Trysil-rail

2007-12-23T17:17:00.000+01:00

A new addition to this post: Here you´ve got a film of the graphic-work, plain and simple, filmed with my iSight (web-cam) on my laptop.

Just received a few pics of the rail I decorated in Trysil on Wednsday. The information I´d gotten beforehand was that I was supposed to decorate a rather small rail, at least not too big sidewalls. The case was something completely different when I arrived. In the good spirit better and bigger PR-surface, Markus, the Trysil park-guy, had picket out a 10m flatbar in stead. Had to limit myself to 3 of the total 5 sideboards... but i did decorate ém on both sides.

6 images in one day... and the scale was too big to use the design I had in mind.. so, I just had to do some high speed "freestyling" for 12 hours.. ended up standing there non-stop until 01.30 AM.
- would´ve bin great to have just a little bit more time... a few areas I would love to work a bit more on... but still: hard work and fun work!

3 out of 6 images from the rail!

Saturday night frency

2007-12-15T21:05:00.000+01:00

Is it not strange that you ski the best when you don´t have to, that you make the best graphical works when you don´t have to make anything. Or that you are killer when it comes to cleaning up your house, writing film reviews or writing a blog-post when you are supposed to read for your exam?

I guess what I´m saying is that I´m really having problems with the motivation to read about motivation right now!

In other news: i finished the wallride in hemsedal on thursday, here is a little sneak peak:

New color sesation from my sketchbook!

2007-10-17T20:59:00.001+02:00

Yet again I've had a creative day. Two new drawings that was started on a long time ago, but they we're worked on today, and here you go: Fast lines, bright colors and good times! All in A4 format (29,5cm * 21cm) and made with permanent markers.

Sketchbook outtake!

2007-10-10T15:37:00.000+02:00

So once again I've got a few sketches to put on display. Two of these are brand new. Made the two color-full once on the train to Field productions premiere last Friday. The others are more than a year old, but still good enough.

Drawing time: My wall!

2007-10-02T14:48:00.000+02:00

So I finally managed to take a picture of a girl that´s been hanging on my wall for quite some time! Thought it was about time she would get some attention! hehe..

Inspiration taken from a slum-kiddo in India. Beauty is to be found everywhere! Can't state that this is a political piece of work: but that might be just as good!

This is markers and acrylic paint on plain cardboard.

Drawing time!

2007-10-02T01:37:00.000+02:00

To describe it frankly! Today has bin a drawing frency! Usually I put out just a few a month, but today I created a horde of sketches. Did also some Photoshop color-job on two on two of the pictures today. I never do this, but it´s still fun once in a while! Worked to it´s purpose. Dropping out both the original versions and the PS version on those. I general, no purpose of these drawings, just for fun! (Click the pictures to enlarge)

Politics and values; the decay of the world

2007-09-12T13:18:00.000+02:00

So what makes so many of the political leaders so blind around the world? How can leaders of the self proclaimed "enlightened" west fail to see so obvious flaws in their strategies?! And now, as so many times before, the biggest spotlight is on the US. This marvelous country which has lost it´s contact with the surrounding world. The politics, the opinions that are being born in this country bare witness of political and social isolation from the rest of the world. The biggest political mistake so far has been to put itself on top of a pedestal. Above all the other nations, believes and the knowledge of history, USA manages to continue their ever more rapid journey down into the abyss.

I have absolutely no sympathies for extremists of any kind. Neither Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or far right- or west-wing political groups that turns to extremes to give their believes attention. But major countries who fail so grasp the consequences of their actions, fail to see that they've bin pursuing the wrong goals, is just as frightening.
The article that Robert Scheer wrote for "the Truth Dig" yesterday, puts the US military presents and strategy into question. The fact that they after a constant and slowly defeat these last years, still deny this. That they still manage to have full confidence in their own means, well that says a lot. It also says a lot about the price interests in the western world are willing to pay for gaining access and control over the ever more precious resource that now can be called the black blood of the middle east.

I don´t blame all of this on the entire American population, or the entire European population for that sake. I blame a system that values cash and corporate interests higher than the life of thousands of soldiers. And much worse and much more important, the life of the hundreds of thousands of civilians that has lost their lifes in the conflict region. Slayed for the benefit of large and greedy organisations. Slayed for the pride of generals and politicians who fail to use the words "I was wrong" and "I am sorry." But I do blame the people of the western world for not caring! For not looking away from that TV-screen filled with fun and mindless entertainment. When the foundations of our, for now, safe and stable lives are being torn away. All this being done by our prime-ministers and presidents. The greed for sufficient votes next election. The corporate businesses´s greed for higher and better stock-values next week!

And now the greed and the power is back in Russia as well. Yet another great country, that can play it´s role as an important opposing and stabilizing country. Now this country is waving with it´s swords, telling the world that Russia once again is a rising superpower. This country with traditions for neglect, goals of political supremacy no matter how many opponents they have to remove from the political scene, if not remove completely. But still, Russia still has potential for both better and worse, but these last few years has shown a frightening tendency of extremes.

UPDATE the 13.09.07 : Sergei Ivanov was looked upon as the most likely successor to Putin, but again the president of Russia managed to surprise everybody when he presented Viktor Zubkov as the new prime-minister of Russia. Zubkov has throughout many years bin Putins loyal friend and political supporter and partner. Their professional friendship has lasted since 1990. But it is a well known fact that Zubkov is less of a visible political figure, and a less obvious presidential candidate. Of course this not a final decision, there still has to be an official selection and an election. But is this a part of a Putin strategy to come back as a presidential candidate in the 2012 election?

How can we change this system? How can we put the human values on the agenda again? How can we avoid or survive this constructed conflict that is building up as we speak? How did it ever turn into these solid fractions, the west and the east? The Christians and the Muslims? Do we need to see our lives has bin torn away? Just to understand that we all have fought for a cause that was not our own and not for anybodies benefit in the end. Do we have to go through all this before we realize that the greed for power and cash will bring us down? All this before we all feel remorse? Do we have to kill our so called enemy before we tell them we are sorry?

Back 2 school - getting serious, lots of work and fun!

2007-09-03T14:14:00.000+02:00

So once again we´re back at school, reading about administration of workforce, how to strategically use the competence of the available workforce, and how to work towards a better environment for innovation through constantly providing your employees with new and relevant knowledge and thereby giving them, and your business, a better foundation for further work.
- Have to say it´s nice to get back into this academical way of thinking after a long summer, where these thoughts have bin absent. And just as important, get back to all the good folks at school.

The biggest challenge so far this fall has been the fact that I have worked hard at the store, with art and on the sideline; planning this coming winter season and how to gain the necessary funds ! This planning is always just as fun and frustrating. I really want to perform well this winter, get some good trips and in general ski well. I also want to remake the success we had with "Winter Jam" this previous March, and again give something to the local ski and snowboard scene. "Winter Jam" was a good experience, and told me a lot about the potential of the local scene, both the commercial factors and the interest of the users is present, so nowadays I´m sketching out a proposal for further work on this issue. The prospect of what´s within reach with the right supporters is great and inspiring!

And, I´m creative again, with pencils and brushes! Finally really putting down some work on it! After a rather lazy summer in that field, I have finished 20 drawings and on my second painting i 3 weeks. Great Success!

"In other news": the fact that members of mankind still are stupid and easily lured; Daimien Hirst sold his platinum and gold scull "for the love of god" for an estimate of the "nice price" of a $110'000'000!

And for more inspiration, here´s a new Banksy, great to see that he is still out there. There has bin some controversy on it´s originality, if it´s a real Banksy or not, but I choose to believe its one! I´ve always loved Anthony Lister, read his Interview at Fecal Face and here´s one of his new paintings. Simple, brilliant strokes and wonderful colors in all with works, if you ask me that is!

Summer recap!

2007-08-05T21:41:00.000+02:00

The 15th of July I was back here at Lillehammer after a month at Stryn. Back to Lillehammer and work. This years Quiksilver camp at Stryn went down more or less flawlessly, and dude, we had good times!

The park was better, the weather in general supernice.. a few comps and we represented: Both Charley and Henning did well..! Sprite and Aloha. Small and fun comps! Great that Charley got over, good times hanging out with him again! The last day on the glacier was defenetly top 3 of the summer. The pictures of that day can be rather shocking, so hang on tight! hehe Good times on the hill!
Fun hanging out with Henning, Anniken, Adi, Charley and Kenneth this summer. And ofcourse, tons of good parties at Stryn, like always!

Have to say that this years Quiksilver camp was 10 times better than last years! And it´s already settled that Charley is comming back next year, and we have big plans for next years camp! Bigget, better, more professional in every aspect. The coaching, the park: and just as important, we´ll keep it low key, childish, fun and work on the progression of the campers like always! With stoke!

In a few days it´s actually time to go to school again! The summer has been too short as every year, but I have to say I´m looking forward to get back to school again as well! So now I´m spending my time on a new painting, and trying to get som graphic work done in time! Now all I need is some nice weather and a little refill on my VISA!

http://www.quiksilvercamp.no/

The perfect satire!

2007-05-20T16:19:00.000+02:00

"The truth dig" is a nice site to drop by once in a while. These days I´m writing my home-exams so I´m dropping by all sorts of web-pages! Today I found this great cartoon by Mr.Fish:

In addition I decided to add some more of his work for "the truth dig". Like his way of being rude, straight forward and on the spot.
In my opinion, good satire. Combine that with the fact that he can make great drawings with good variation in style and character: well, it makes him a winner!

So I found a little piece of art to share!

2007-05-01T21:59:00.000+02:00

These days I've gone through a total flip in my daily life. From pretty much being only skiing, some random sketches and one school assignment once in a while, to full on school and now bigger art-projects. Still nothing big work that´s gonna go down, but it´s growing in scale in comparison to the last few months.. I´m still trying to decide what to do, but I´m getting there!

- The main focus on this update on the other hand is Blu:
One of my long time favorite street-art performers. Keeping such impressive productivity and level on his work these last few years, so it´s about time to show him off! (I only needed a wooster-update as a reminder)

If you like these following sketches go to http://blublu.org/ to see more!

So i busted my spleen..

2007-04-27T17:20:00.000+02:00

Last week we were in Hemsedal havin a good time! Chillin and cruising around in the park for a few days.. On thusday the conditions were packed but we still had fun. But on the first run after our lunch I ate shit on a tiny jump in the small park, and it really hurt! Took my time to recover myself and skied down to the others, and then down to the bottom of the hill, just to fint myself i a really shitty condition! So after a pit-stop at the skipartol and at the local medic-center I found myself in an ambulance on my way to Lillehammer.

So to shorten it down: My spleen was pretty much in two pieces, my left kidney was bleeding and the hospital staff was super pissed on the doctor in hemsedal that sent me by car in stead of a heli. Me on the other hand got my morphin and was fine with that.. The end result of this story is that now I have to stay calm for 3 months! On the bright side I got out of the hospital today, so I´m stoked on that! And now the nice spring weather just came so it´s nice just to sit out and chill!

Megapark Pictures

2007-04-16T13:29:00.000+02:00

I´ve stolen some pictures from the Fri Flyt web-page:
The guy in black and blue here is Anders Backe, throwin down his solid steeze, in yellow you have Even, happy as always, skiing in his unique everyday fashion, and Kenneth Lillemoen in a mid rodeo 5, throwing down hard as always! The last guy was skiing hard all day.. I have to admit I don´t know his name, so if anybody knows, tell me!

- And now it´s onto Hemsedal!

Megapark part 2.

2007-04-15T22:57:00.000+02:00

I know that most folks associates Megapark with shredding the gnar on jumps and rails, and that this is the very concept of the event. Well, it´s true, but for my sake this is a week were i get to work my ass off, while hanging out with friends and ski super crappy afterwards because of the total lack of rest. But most of all it´s lots and lots of fun while skiing, hanging out, throwing down on the parties and meeting all those good friends in the same location! - As u can see here, we do other things as well, like kidding around with my cam on my Mac.

Of course, self-focused as I am, I´m to be found in all these 5 pics..! But the other guys are diggers at Megapark. So I´ve bin their boss for the week, and I bet they´re only expressing and intense joy for not having to put up with my bitching!

I have to give the lots of cred! They put down such great work this entire week, and when they in addition go out there and ski hard (!) it simply can´t get any better! Commenting the second last picture, with the four of us:
From the left: Olav, Knut, Håvard and me.. in motion!

PS: I´m gonna come back with a picture update from Megapark!

Megapark på Oppdal!

2007-04-10T14:35:00.000+02:00

Så er det Megapark igjen!

Nå er det Tirsdag og vi spar som noen udyr, hoppene ser virkelig lovende ut, og selv om jeg er innhabil så det står etter, kan jeg virkelig stå for det! I Skrivende stund er det 10 hopp her som er under oppføring, og det kommer mer. Nå jobber vi med å sette opp en hel del rails og vi får nok litt tann denne gangen her også skal du se!

Arti åt ungan ja!

Picture up-date from Candide Invitational!

2007-04-04T18:28:00.000+02:00

I'm dropping a new photo-update from Candide Invitational. Just to give a nice overview of the some of the park features:

The first two pictures is from the corner in the middle of the slope. One massiv corner with a step-up/roll-over jump in between the lip of the corner and the corner landing.
The next two pictures are from the bottom set-up. Such a fun set-up!

All pictures curtesy to "scratcher" at Skipass.com, click to enlarge:

I´ve travelled again; and here´s the result

2007-04-04T11:45:00.000+02:00

Canada, some travels in Norway and then a little trip to France. Trips like these always turns out to be productive, and here´s a few samples: (click to se larger version)

So, Gabriel is home again!

2007-04-03T22:08:00.000+02:00

Just spoke to the Quiksilver team-managed and Gabriel just arrived home at Hemsedal! He has no injuries and will probably be back on skis tomorrow, and that's SO impressive for all those who saw that crash!

Hopefully I'll find a web-link to a clip of that fall soon!

So I´m home at Dombås!

2007-04-03T01:43:00.000+02:00

Right now I´m at my parents place, waiting for the train to arrive from Trondheim, forgot my boots on the train this afternoon, so I have to pay for it now, since I´m so godd damn tired! And the reason why is simple.

A great mixture of traveling, skiing almost every day of the last 3 weeks, barley any sleep during my recent trip to La Clusaz, and the general feeling og being tired and worn down after sessioning all those HUGE jumps! The biggest one had a 44m flat, and u had to clear at least 50 to land ok. Crazy shit, and Candide tore the place appart!

- The unfortunate thing was that Gabriel on the norwegian Quiksilver team almost killed himself on a super sketchy yardsale in La Clusaz village on the "In-city-contest". So i spent entire sunday aside his bed and watched him recover from a complete mess to quite well orienteted. Impressed how that kid managed to get away with no broken bones! He is still hospitilized as we speak, but will hopefully return to Norway tomorrow afternoon!
Bad luck and timing for Gabriel who really stood his ground and prowed himself during this weekend! Super stylish and massive tricks. Solid and so stylish!

In other news PK Hunder won the Jon Olsson invt. in Åre! Congrats buddy! That´s so fuckin cool man! He won against Jon Olsson, Tj schiller, Jacob Wester, Simon Dumont and others! He threw down his first ever sw 1260 true nose in the final for the win!

-------------------------------- credits --------------------------------
- Candide Invitational pictures: Guillaume Lauhre/Skipass.com
- Jon Olsson Invitational pictures: Mattias Fredriksson

Back from Candide!

2007-04-02T02:24:00.000+02:00

This post will be updated with pictures!

So now I´m at gardermoen, and tired as hell, waitng for a train back home. But La Clusaz was so much fun, until Gabriel scared us all, with the fall of the century. So skechy! Bet it will be on the web soon!

- Yup, so..