In support of Breast Cancer Awareness month, Sharpie has teamed up with some of fashion’s finest designers in a charity initiative to benefit City of Hope, a Breast Cancer research, awareness and education center. 

A host of top fashion designers including Tracy Reese, Milly, Prabal Gurung, DKNY, Tory Burch and many more, have joined Sharpie to create works of inspiring art with a theme to empower women!  These amazing sketches, along with a t-shirt designed exclusively for Sharpie by fashion icon and breast cancer survivor Betsey Johnson, will be donated to City of Hope, a leading research, treatment and education center for cancer and other life threatening disease. 

The auction begins Friday, October 23th @1pm (PST) & ends Sunday, November 2nd@  1pm (PST).

Visit us at www.sharpieuncapped.com to learn more about how to participate and bid on one-of-a-kind art pieces created by fashion’s finest!  Pictures of the designer’s canvases will be featured on Sharpie Uncapped ,the Sharpie Fan page on Facebook and bid on these exclusive designer canvases at www.auctionsforhope.org.

 A big THANK YOU goes out to all the fashion designers participating in the auction!  Your designs are beautiful and your contribution will help to touch millions!

Be sure to pick up your Sharpie Pink Ribbon markers and highlighters this month, benefitting City of Hope. Check out the Pink Ink at www.sharpie.com

This is no ordinary 17-year-old. This man's got skills...

Garcia: I’ve been drawing since I was 13. I was influenced by a graffiti drawing my sister brought home from school one of her friends did for her. Since then I’ve taught myself new techniques and forms of art there was to be learned. I would really like to explore the different types of art and things there are to be offered, but then again…money isn’t always around to help out. 

Dragon Ball Z

Q: What are the main types of shoes you draw on?

Garcia: Plain white canvas Vans and High top Converse are the shoes I focus on the most for their material. High top converse and Vans are very useful for all the space they provide me with to draw. It’s so easy to draw on and works great with the sharpies. No smears or smudges except for water. That’s a big problem I have right now. Protecting the art. It would be nice if I could experiment with the different types of paints and art supplies to better my designs though. Other colored shoes aren’t great with multi colored sharpie art which is why I stick with white.

Q: Why are Sharpie products a good fit for this?

Garcia: Well I have tried pens and other plain school markers, map colors and pencils. No other writing utensils match up to the great sharpie. If only there were a greater variety of colors to choose from. I’m sure there is or maybe I just haven’t heard of them. But I love the easy glide sharpie gives when drawing on the shoe. It makes it so much easier than having to constantly go over the same spots again and again. Thin sharpies don’t bleed as much as thick sharpies do on the canvas that’s why I prefer them most. And sharpie also keeps its thick bold color on any surface.

Q: What specific Sharpie tools do you use? Markers, pens, etc.

Garcia: Since I discovered my talent for drawing on shoes from the beginning I’ve only been using thin sharpies. Once in a while I’ll use thick

Got my vans on but they look like sneakers...

 sharpies to save time for bigger spaces to be filled on the shoes. Everything I do is done free hand. I don’t use any stencils. As for measurements and shape placements, I just wing it and hope it comes out as I plan.

Q: How long does it take for you to complete a design on a pair of shoes?

Garcia: My last design took me three hours. And I believe that was the longest time than I took on any pair before. FYI my last pair was the pair with the Looney Toons and Cars on separate shoes that I just posted on the sharpie website. I have so many ideas and people’s opinions to help me out all I need is a great supply of materials to get the job done. Not only do I get to spend days and possibly my lifetime doing something I love but I also get paid for it.

Q: What’s your favorite design you have made? Why?

Garcia's favorite... I think it's mine too!

Garcia:The Looney tunes design is my favorite. Since I came up with that idea I knew it was gonna be a seller. I loved the challenge and the different characters it involved. So unique. That shoe itself took me about an hour and a half. The first day I advertised them I got so many compliments, requests and phone numbers. It was amazing to me and flattering at how many people admired my shoes. It was definitely worth the time and always will be.

Q: Do you wear the shoes? Sell them?

Garcia: I wear the shoes every day. I only have a pair for myself but I wish I had the money to have a different pair everyday. I do sell them as well. Right now for very cheap as a matter of fact. 40 dollars isn’t much in my pocket. Especially when I have to keep providing myself with more supplies. I’ve been told by so many people though that I’m under-charging and that I could be charging near the hundreds and possibly more.

Q: Have friends or family asked you to draw designs for them?

Garcia: Everyday. I do do my family’s shoes for free

Q: Anything else you’d like to share that I didn’t ask?

Garcia: Yes. Well, I’ve recently been offered a job in Corpus Christi for an underground clothing line. I don’t really trust the owners and my family knows how long I’ve been waiting for my time to be noticed. I’ve looked around so much and as far as this interview, this seems the closest I’ve gotten to being in that limelight. And even if this doesn’t go as I planned I’d like to thank you for requesting this interview and helping me out any way you can. Thank you.

See more of Aj’s Work  http://www.myspace.com/ajgarcia19

Hit him up for shoes!  snbntaurelio@hotmail.com

Visit www.sharpieuncapped.com for more ideas on how to get creative with Sharpie.

 

Now this is what I call HOT WHEELS! As a kid you were probablly told never draw on anything with a Sharpie.  Heck, you probablly tell yourself that even as an adult!  Well, leave it to two young guys in Jacksonville, North Carolina to break the rules and go to town on a $10,000 Honda sportbike! 

Spending over 50 hours tagging this bike, Jesse Lockhart, 25, and  Nick Schuman, 27, went by their own rules, took out their Sharpies and simultaneously began drawing on opposite sides of Schuman’s brother-in-law’s sportbike.  The duo decided to name it Shiyonin, meaning “Servant of God,” reflecting their Oriental backgrounds.  And with no professional background, Schuman and Lockhart, with a total of only 4 Sharpies,  uncapped their creativity and drew whatever came to mind!

You may want to take a second, third, even a fourth look at Shiyonin because every time you look, you are sure to find something new!  And no Sharpie fans, you are not seeing things- I asked and yes, that is the Michelin Man and Woody the Woodpecker!  Check out these pictures and learn about how Lockhart and Schuman used their talent to create one AMAZING piece of work.

Tell me a little about yourself and everyone who contributed!  My name is Jesse Lockhart, I’m a 25 yr old male and  Nick Schuman is a 27 yr old male.  Our wives definitely had a big role in contributing to this bike because.  Alongside our 9-5 work week, we had to work on the bike after hours, LATE into the night.   One of our biggest contributors, we would both have to say is Jesus, for giving us the talent to do it.

How long have you been riding?  I started when I was 8 on dirtbikes, so for 17 years I have been riding.  Nick has been riding for 15 years, starting when he was 12, on a minibike.

Do you have an art background?  Professional artists?  We both have had artistic talent since we were young.  Our minds have always seen things differently that most people don’t usually see – Curves, Colors, Shapes, Texture!  We are not professional yet, but we are well on our way to becoming full-time custom painters. 

What made you decide to Sharpie up this HOT bike? We are in the process of opening our own custom paint shop and we wanted to do something that would definitely stand out amongst the crowd and shine some light on our business.  This bike was actually done for Nick’s brother in-law, who was more than willing to lend a bike to get tagged when he heard the idea of a “Sharpie bike.”

Why Sharpie? Why did you go with Black & White?  Nick and I have always been big fanS of white vehicles ( Both of us and our wives all have white vehicles).  White is very clean and the bike itself is mostly black, so it was kind of a no-brainer that we would both want to do black over white.  All our lives we were told to never to write on anything with a Sharpie because it was PERMANENT, so when we had the chance to use a Sharpie on something big and important like a $10,000 machine, we were all over it!

About how many Sharpies went into this? What kinds did you use? Believe it or not, I had 2 markers and Nick had 2 markers and neither of them ran out!  We both had 1 fine tip for outlining and 1 fat chisel tipped for filling in.

Did you have a plan? Tell me about the process!  NO PLAN!!! We both stepped back with a blank stare, he took one side and I took the other and we met in the middle.  Whatever popped into our heads went on the bike. Total improv.

I would be terrified to mess up…Who made the first mark?  How nervous were you?    We both started at the same exact time with both of us laughing at what we had gotten ourselves into!  We knew it was going to be a long process.   Then about 10 minutes later we started cracking up at the “squeeekie,squeeekie” sound that came from the tips of the markers- that never stopped.  It was hilarious...we weren’t nervous!

How many bikes do you own? Kinds?  I have a 2008 Suzuki GSXR 600. Nick traded his beloved Honda “Nicky Hayden Edition” RC51 in for his son’s new dirtbike.

Does anyone actually ride it or is it just for show?  Yes!  It is driven daily, we haven’t even been able to finish it.  He (Nick’s brother-in-law) was told to bring the bike back the next day for touchups and here it is a month later and it still hasn’t made it back (he just likes the attention)!

Any other designs in the works?  Yes, but it’s a secret for now.

What’s next for the bike?  Lowering it, extending it, finish custom exhaust, and Sharpie the wheels.

***

Be sure to visit Lockhart’s myspace page to see more photos of Shiyonin and the hard work that was put into creating the design. 

Also, look forward to their new website and new updates on http://www.shiyonin.com/

Rad Rider posted this on pinkbike.com.  Here, in the words of the artist himself…

After being inspired by a Lamborghini with a Sharpie paint job, I decided to take apart my BLK MRKT Riot and start to work. When I first started I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into and wasn’t sure what people would think of it.  After posting my first picture to Pinkbike and getting a bunch of positive feed back I kept at it and this is the final product.

Although there seem to have been attempts by bike manufacturers to apply art to their products, they never seem to go all out, and when you hear of a unique or custom bike you think of maybe a mono color painted frame with matching colored components. Even before I saw the Sharpie’d Lambo I was thinking about different ways of making my bike truly unique and artistic.

At first I was set on an 80’s theme that I was going to airbrush onto the bike, although this may have seemed like a good idea I have never worked with an air brush gun and also do not own one. So when I got the influenced idea of Sharpie graffiti I started right away. At first I started with a bullet and casing since it seemed to go well with the BLK MRKT theme and from there on I pretty much just “went with the flow” and incorporated some textures and idea’s from friends at school and on the Pinkbike forums.

At first I was using a normal Sharpie and it seemed to work great, and then for some reason I switch to what I thought was an old sharpie because of its red logo. It wasn’t till 3 days after I started that I realized it was an industrial strength Sharpie and once I realized this and looked at my frame I could see almost all of the area’s I used the normal Sharpie wearing off. If it wasn’t for this industrial strength Sharpie I doubt this project would have turned out as well as it did.  So since all I have been using is a sharpie you can tell this was an extremely cost effective project and surprisingly The Sharpie lasted the entire bike.

Although it may seem something like this might only take a few hours on a piece of paper, and I also thought this when I started. It actually turned out to be very tricky and difficult to get a steady and consistent line on the curved surface. So, what started out as a relatively quick project turned out to take me close to 50 hours in total, but it was definitely worth every hour.