It's nice to be friends with Heather Ross. For one thing, she always knows where really good food can be found (and if you're lucky, she'll share with you). Also, she is a fantastically funny storyteller, which you already know if you are a reader of her blog. And she's super entertaining to travel with (I once saw her catch a frog with her bare hands to use as a prop on a photo shoot, true story!). But the best part of being friends with Heather is that sometimes she asks you to help her on really fun projects.
When Heather asked me to help her design some surfboards using her artwork for Walden Surfboards, I was thrilled. Looking through Heather's artwork, we knew the mermaids were an obvious choice. You can see the original sketches we made above, before we knew the actual dimensions and sizes of the boards which would be used for the final product. Below you can see how the surfboards turned out, and you can even watch a little video of the boards in action over on the Global Surf Industries site.
One nice little touch: We asked Walden if Heather could redraw their logo so it looked a little more cohesive with these designs and Heather came up with this cute turtle. I love the way it looks on the boards and how it still relates back to the original Walden logo.
The beach was a big part of my childhood in Southern California, and though I'm not a surfer myself, I've always been surrounded by that culture. My family and I left New York several years ago and moved back west, and it's been so nice to be close to the beach again. My children love the ocean, just like I did when I was a kid. They can spend all day making sandcastles and playing with the waves, visiting the tide pools or digging for shells. There are definitely times when I miss living in the city, but during the summertime in Southern California... there's no place I'd rather be.
