Leon Washere is a skater and artist who recreates skate footage through painted animations. He takes classic and modern tricks and reimagines their visual elements through animated paintings and music. His curated collection of work captures iconic tricks by some of the most stylish skaters out there right now and from the past. His work shows his passion for skateboarding and art but also the personalities, spots and eras that he’s experienced through skate videos.
He’s made a series of pieces independently and for brands over the years, so we wanted to find out how he came up with his creative process and approaches making his work. So we had a chat about how he started making art, how he came up with the name Leonwashere, what made skating great in the golden era of the 90s and right now, his pieces on Gino Iannucci, Jason Dill, Ben Kadow, Josh Kalis, Jamal Smith, Reese Forbes, John Cardiel, working with Adidas, Lucas Puig, what keeps him motivated to go skate and make his animations and his favourite skaters, artists, videos and spots of all-time and more.
Read Leon’s Fully Illustrated interview below to find it all out for yourself.
Where did you grow up and where do you live now?
Yeah, I grew up in South Jersey. It’s 10 minutes from the beach. I guess the closest reference point I can think of right now would be Atlantic City. It’s a spot where people gamble, there are casinos and stuff. I grew up there surfing and skating, it’s a beach culture-type place.
So, it’s really different from Philadelphia. I’m in Philadelphia now. I went to university here, in my late teens and early 20s. So it’s been interesting to be back up here, in the city.
Keith Hufnagel, Ollie, FTC Video
When did you start skating?
Yeah, I started skating in seventh grade. I’m 40 now and I was 12 when I started.
All our friends started to get bored, we had this little crew. People fell off as they do, I think for lots of people it’s the same story but I kept skating.
At what point did you start to make art?
I was always drawing comics and dabbling in art. My mom is super creative and she was always making quilts and doing woodworking and just cool stuff and that’s where I got the idea I can make stuff too.
The barrier for entry seemed so large when you’re a kid, then someone gets you a paint set and you’re like oh shit, I can just create my stuff!
So, I painted and then I started painting in college because I had a couple of courses where we would work on projects and try different techniques. I found those really fun.
That’s when I got into working with gouache, doing more figure drawing and studies of anatomy and stuff like that, and then I just really did that.
I was always attracted to the human form whether through portraiture or still life. I did all that stuff way before I started doing animation
I’m not a trained animator by any means. I went to school for design and graphic design. So, I had a pretty good base knowledge of the fundamentals of art, composition, colour and all that.
But as far as animation I had no idea, I actually got laid off from a job and I was sitting around for three months and I just started painting a lot. Then I just had an idea one day. I don’t know if I saw something but I was like what if I could paint 30 frames?
It sounded insane to me at the time and then I thought what if I print them out and colour that and colour on the paint on top of them?
Also, I did a black and white Xerox and that’s where it started, just not having much to do.
How did you come up with the name Leonwashere?
We built a DIY when I was in South Jersey called Meg’s NJ DIY. It was just me and my friend who would build every chance and when we were at work this kid would show up and start fucking tagging our shit. We were like how does anybody even know about this DIY?
He wasn’t a skater and he’s tagging it. But his name was Leon. He would write Leonwashere, all in one word. He wouldn’t put any spaces and I said to my buddy, “Who the fuck is Leonwashere?”
My buddy was like read it again. I was like Leonwashere, and I realised it said, leon-was-here! I was just reading it like a fucking idiot.
That night I went home and changed my handle to Leonwashere as a joke between me, my friends, and now everybody. I had no clue my animation stuff was going to take off or anything, and it was too late by the time I got around to it.
What was the first piece you created?
Yeah, the first one I did, in the style I do now, was on this Ben Kadow piece, and it was just so analogue.
I had no idea about computer programs to use this stuff. I was just screenshotting screengrabs of frames I thought were cool of a trick.
I would go on YouTube or Instagram, pause the video and screengrab it. It was so archaic, looking back now but I didn’t know that.
So I would look at the videos and think if I was a photographer, what frame is the coolest of this skater?
This is before I did 30 frames, or 60-frame animations for this, I was doing 10 to 15 frames so it was more a stop motion type thing, chopped up, So that was the first one and I had gotten some oil-based Sharpies from a store and I was like oh, these things are paint, it wasn’t a regular Sharpie or a marker or something.
And then I remember I used to use gouache in college. I got some gouache and acrylic gouache-type stuff and thought, I can get the colours I want and mix it up and use markers and gouache and coloured pencil and whatever else but that was the first one I did and it was magic.
I felt like holy shit, this is completely different, I just reinvented this clip, I don’t know, there’s a magic to animation. Once you hit the spacebar and the frames start playing, you’re like oh, my god it worked.
It’s always fun to see that and I think they take so long to do. You have to essentially do 30 little illustrations to create a piece, it can be monotonous. But I didn’t have anything else to do and I was interested to see what it looked like.
So I did that one and I made the animation on my phone, I just took pictures of each frame then took them into Photoshop because I had some experience in that, and figured out they have this timeline feature and lined them up and set them to a frame rate then exported it.
I had Instagram, so I thought I should share this, my friends will probably see this and that was where it started. Yeah, the Ben Kadow one, where he does those really insane Slappys, he does them so nonchalantly.
What was the reaction like when you put that Kadow animation out?
Everybody was positive. It was just a personal account, nobody was ever following me. And then a couple of my friends probably sent it around and people were saying this is insane… how? What filter did you use for this?
They thought I just ran it through some shit and I was like nah, it’s my work! From then I would tag the skater and whoever shot the footage and Bill Strobeck saw it and within an hour of me posting it, he had reposted it to his page and I was like holy shit, this thing has all these views then I got an enormous amount of followers, obviously because it’s Strobeck.
It was just one of those things that was organic and I didn’t really have any plans for. I just posted it to show my other art friends this new stuff I’m doing. And so I just kept making them then.
What was the second piece that you made?
The second one I made was Pepe Martinez one where he Switch Backside Flips a can.
And then I did a Reese Forbes one where he does That 180 to Switch 180 out at Pulaski and all these classic clips that obviously the Kadow one wasn’t the first one, really the idea of a classic clip to me, but I mean there’s so much good skating, now it’s hard to find.
For me it was easier to go to the archive of when I grew up because I knew what stood out to me and now it’s so saturated so I would go and revisit these old videos and I would literally know what part and what skater and trick.
Then just experimenting from there, the first one was so rough and the early ones are so rough, and it’s funny.
I look back at them now and I don’t even know if I could do them that badly. I don’t know what I was thinking. It looks like I didn’t know how to draw a straight line but there’s something to that crudeness that I miss.
Your art usually focuses on iconic skaters so it’s funny that it was the first that got lots of attention.
I look at a lot of these guys now. I’m like these guys would have been huge back in my childhood if they skated the same way.
Like all these guys, I do the animations of paved the way so people can skate the way they do and make a living. Skating now is rich with different styles and people just doing the most insane shit every single day.
Back in the day you wouldn’t see that stuff. You had to either be in person or wait for some random video to come out. It was so hard.
Yeah definitely wait for the Flip video to come out or wait for the new Girl video to see what people are doing. But nowadays the progression is hourly.
Dude, skateboarding is sick, if you’re growing up in this era, I mean there’s obviously a lot more mediocre stuff to wade through. But for the most part, there’s a bigger basket of really good skaters out there pushing themselves, definitely.
There’s more variation and if you’re a fan of skateboarding, it’s a great time. Do you always produce with an audience in mind?
Yeah, I think, I mean that’s where I think you get into trouble when you start thinking about, does somebody want to see a Kader clip? Or does someone want to see a Tyshawn thing? It’s not that I’m not a fan of those guys, but I’m more interested in the people that laid the groundwork for all these guys to be skating.
As I was saying earlier, the way they do now, I mean the way Reese Forbes skates really fast and powerful and does basic tricks, makes it possible for a dude like Nick Stain to make a living in skateboarding. You know what I mean?
True, respect the people who came before you and laid the foundations for what you do.
Yeah, and it’s always fun to watch dudes, older footage of that. I did a Kalis 360 Flip over a trash can and I think that the dude who filmed it reached out to me.
I was like, oh my god, that clip is so classic, it was from Toy Machine’s Heavy Metal video and it was funny to me because he had done so much shit over the Love Park trash cans, it was like holy shit, he was so good but he was doing it just as well back then.
And it’s funny in Philly, here, there’s a trick list that the kids have, I think Brian Panebianco, that dude who does all the Sabotage stuff has a list of everything that’s been done over the cans and they check it off. You can’t do a trick that’s already been done, or no one. So it’s this thing, what else is possible over these bump to cans?
When I was here at college, I skated at Love Park every day, for as much as I could for four years. And I remember I used to see Josh Kalis and those guys light up Love at night and I remember watching him trying to Switch Tre over the can for however long, and he never got it but he would land on it and I mean he was so good and it’s just unbelievable to think of the people I got to watch.
But it was that type of stuff too. If I’ve seen somebody skate or skate with somebody in real life, I’m more drawn to their skating.
We all know that the fucking magic is being out there with your friends and watching, catching glimpses of these dudes, that are incredible and, a dude that I never understood how good he was.
Who’s a skater right now that stands out to you?
Tyler Bledsoe. Like that dude, he’s really good on camera, but in person, he’s got to be one of the best, most consistent skaters I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s so impressive in person and it’s just one of those things I never expected.
You know, I expected him to be some tech dude that took forever to land tricks, but in person, he’s so unreal, just everything is proper.
What was the first piece you were paid for?
I think, well, I think the first piece I was properly paid for was I did some stuff for some local companies. Terror of Planet X is a local Philly brand and I did some clips for them for a video.
I worked with the videographer, Jake Todd, on a video, he does a lot of the Theories of Atlantis stuff. He just came out with a video called Devil’s Pocket. It’s up everywhere. That was the first one I got paid for.
The first I got properly paid for was probably some stuff for Uma.
That was the first big job I think I had in skateboarding.
I did some stuff for Adidas and Lucas Puig where he was skating those curbs and I did some work with the 1993 agency.
But I mean I did them for years without really getting much work out of it. You know what I mean but now I’ve been pushing them to a point where I can make a living off of doing it. It was always fun. Like I remember I did a thing for a board for FTC early on which was really rad, it was called Paterson, which is German Nieves’ company.
I think I did a few clips for them. The company is called 18 East, which is a rad clothing company my buddy, Antonio, runs out of New York. so it was just people that I knew and met, and I’ve met so many cool people through it. I met Gino Iannucci and he was at one of the shows.
He’s friends with this guy, Antonio, and he rolled by a show I had at his studio in New York and that was cool. I mean just rad stuff. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people through just making them and I was never good enough for people wanting to film me and shit. Like I was just not there on that level. You know, skating I just enjoyed the other side of it.
What inspires your colour palettes?
I don’t know, I was always pretty good at colour. I mean I always had a pretty good eye for what I think worked. I mean just being a fan of art I just knew when something worked.
I don’t think people who have a strong sense of colour, labour over it, like skaters who are really good at skating, don’t labour over, being able to Nollie Flip Crooks. I just wanted to find something that was difficult for me.
Gino Iannucci, Switch Flip: Shot by Ben Colen
Making art is a challenge.
It’s a challenge, I understand it’s more of a natural sense from working in design for a bunch of years, I had some colour theory, but for the most part, it’s a lot of pastels and bright pops of colour.
I mean I experiment a lot too. I’ll usually break out one frame and do a test on it and get all the colours set on one frame before I run everything now because it’s too troublesome for me to do a whole set and then be like oh, I hate orange shit, for the pants or whatever, so I don’t know.
I mean, everything changes. I’m always being inspired by new things, taking a lot of photos and just cropping them down because I like the way two colours sit next to each other. It might be a brick wall, door or something. I see it and I’ll take a photo of stuff.
Your animation of Gino’s back three down the double set that’s in black and white. Is there a reason why it was black and white?
Yeah, I think, I thought it’d be interesting to see what it looked like with line work with Gino and he’s got that really flowy style anyway, and I just wanted to see if it could even work in a single colour.
I don’t do a lot of those because people are more attracted to the colour stuff and, when I do them in black and white, I think they’re super sick.
But I don’t know it’s hard for clients to be, they are always into super colourful stuff but I would love to do more of that stuff, to be honest.
How did you come up with the Dill Piece?
Dude, that spot is so insane, that’s in New York on, I think, Lafayette. Dude nobody skates that spot, there’s one in a hundred dudes who can skate that spot and do an actual trick on that thing.
Being a skater, coming up from Philly and seeing these spots, I’m like dude, you watch a skate video, you’re like that’s impressive. You go to the spot in person. You’re like dude, I can’t even pop a Kickflip off this ground, how did they get up there? You know what I mean?
Like it’s cool to see an actual spot in person and that type of stuff and that’s a big thing too, for the animations I make, does the spot look cool?
Yeah, definitely, and all the stuff that we all know as skaters makes a sick clip. Like the Cardiel 540 animation you made, how did you decide to animate that one?
So is that the one where Cardiel‘s like you gotta alley-oop it. He did it padless too, which I always thought was really sick, it’s rad.
Looking through some of your older animations I’m noticing that the Jamal Smith one is edited alongside video. That’s sick, are you going to do more of those?
I just wanted that context of Jamal rolling into the trick and then I just mashed them together and thought this looks dope when it switches to the animation. You know what I mean. It’s like you blink in your eyes and you’re in Willy Wonka world or wherever.
How do you choose the songs?
I put a lot of effort into the music, into finding the right song or even the right part of the song that goes with the speed of the animation of the clip I think that it’s easy to do for a three to five-second clip I had a lot of admiration from people who nail it in an entire part. But I can be selective, I always think of it as sampling.
A lot of times I’ll just explore, I follow a bunch of people on YouTube now. Terminal Passage is a really good place. I pull a lot of my music from. They post these amazing, rock bands out of Japan I would never listen to and I’m like this stuff is so good, so I’ll take suggestions.
Do you still get out on your board much or do you feel it’s difficult these days?
I still get to skate, probably twice a week now. I’m skating today. My buddy Steve’s coming into the city and we’re gonna go skate on this ledge spot that’s right down the street from me, sick. I wish I could skate more, but my body just can’t do it.
I got two, or three hours a session now and I’m toast. I’m 40 now okay, but it’s just all the stuff that comes with that. It’s all about low-impact spots, I’m not going to any huck spots. I’m not going to skate stairs anymore. I’m just going to skate whatever reasonable plaza I can find with some curbs, and maybe I’ll skate a park or some transition I don’t know.
I mean, I still would rather be on the streets. Maybe because of the way we grew up, everything was always caged in, I just felt it was more practice when you’re in those spots. That’s not the reason I started skating, so I’d rather just be out in the city with people and rolling past the randoms that are floating around.
What’s your favourite skate video?
I would say Eastern Exposure 3. Yeah, that’s pretty easy for me. I’m a huge Dan Wolfe fan.
Do you have a favourite skate filmmaker?
A lot of the dudes who are making stuff now, there’s this dude Zach Sayles who does cool fisheye work.
Daniel Dent is doing some stuff online. He’s filming a lot out in LA with dudes. I really like his videos, but I feel I’d leave people out because there are so many like Socrates Leal and Jon Miner and some of his old stuff.
Dan Wolfe. Everything starts from that footage and goes down from there. But I’m biased because it’s all East Coast. You can’t fucking recreate it I don’t think you’ll ever be able to recreate it.
Favourite piece that you’ve created?
My favourite piece would have to be maybe that Gonz line I did, or some of the Gonz ones. I did his kinked rail Boardslide which turned out good.
Then there’s a Gonz line from Video Days where he does Boardslide up over two stacked benches, does a Half Cab and it cuts to the Backside Air.
That dude skated everything, I think for me that was just rad to see. I think it paved the way for a lot of dudes, he was so good at transition and still is, which people didn’t do back in the day and to have good style on both was difficult.
Who’s your favourite skater from the UK?
Curtis McCann. He was so good, there’s rad footage of him online and I always wanted to do one of him. I always thought he was an amazing fucking skater.
Favourite spot to skate in America?
My favourite skate spot in America would have to have been the 90s, and early 2000s love, but now I just don’t really skate Municipal. I skate at this spot called Shakespeare, which isa really good plaza.
I always wanted to skate some of those natural transition spots like Sadlands.
Favourite spot to skate in the world?
Those fountains under the Eiffel Tower. I thought I would have been sick to skate. Dude, drain spots. I think they’re the coolest spots, I don’t know why. I just think they’re so fun. We skate them, but they’re such a bust
My favourite spot I’ve skated? I’ve been out to MACBA and places before, which is really fun. I think Barcelona is fun.
Do you have any favourite artists?
I’m always a fan of Geoff McFetridge’s stuff. I think what he’s done with his career, from doing animation and now he’s just doing fine art and stuff has always been a cool way to do it. You know what I mean. You don’t have to be doing the same thing. You can transition your skills from one thing to another.
Do you have a favourite trick to do on your board?
Back Lips or Back Tail anything, I think, just the way you sit on it it’s so it’s blind, any trick that’s blind. But, Back Tails, I would say, is the best-looking trick on film.
Any advice for artists out there reading this?
I think you have to find a space where you can create your work and be comfortable.
You have to paint for yourself or work for yourself. If nobody was going to see it, would you still be hyped to do this type of thing and remove yourself from the audience?
Read books, look at art, talk to people and travel and all of them feed into what you’re going to create. You know it’s a big part of it. I think when you get older it’s not just okay, you have some technical ability, you can paint, you can draw, you can put together a piece, but I think now it’s more about the things that are going into the art that makes it interesting, the actual person. Get as much information as you can from this world.
Last words for people reading this?
Hang out with your friends as much as you can, get out there, do your thing, don’t try to overthink things and make them happen.
