MONSTER SCRATCHES

I’m an artist who’s been accused by friends who knew me 100 years ago of drawing the same things today that I drew when I was 12 years old. And they’re right. Back then I was drawing dragsters with flames, funny cars half-hidden in tire smoke, and “Big Daddy” Roth monsters driving nasty hot rods.

Today I create scratchboard art — images carved into black ink with a knife blade revealing the white layer underneath. The look is bold, gritty, high contrast, and unlike anything else. But what really connects with people isn’t the technique. It’s the memories underneath the scratches.

Because chances are, you and I grew up around a lot of the same stuff: cars, motorcycles, Sting Rays, BMX bikes, skateboards, drag racing, burnout smoke, wheelie bars, custom car shows, monster T-shirts, and blower hats sticking out of nose-high gassers.

We learned about this exciting world from magazines, model kits, speed shops, older kids in the neighborhood, and the one drag racer on the block with the garage light always on. If we were lucky, our dads were already into it before we were. Some of us inherited the sickness honestly.

In the mid-’60s my dad was one of three drag racers in our Southern California neighborhood. He wasn’t the Willys-gasser-with-the-flip-front-end dad. Or the black ’64 Galaxie with slicks and ladder bars dad. My dad bought $150 used cars and attacked them with an oxy-acetylene torch, turning them into dune buggies, trucks, and homemade drag racing jalopies people today would probably call rat rods.

He did all the work himself in our suburban tract-house garage. Rattle-can paint jobs. Engines hanging from chain hoists bolted to garage rafters. The only thing he ever paid someone else to do was shorten the driveshaft after he shortened the wheelbase.

I was 12 years old and soaking up every second of it.

He raced his Kaiser 226 cubic inch (3.7-liter) “Supersonic” straight six-powered chopped ’41 Willys roadster at San Gabriel, Fontana, Colton, Pomona, and Lions. I’d roam the pits all day until I heard his name crackle over the PA system. Then I’d run to the fence to watch him hammer out a 13-second pass at 99 mph like it was the greatest thing on earth.

My dad, Winston Beaumont, passed away in 2015 at 84 years old from what he called “old age,” after spending his final years still riding dirt bikes every week in the Mojave Desert and cheering on my artwork until the very end.

Maybe that’s why I still draw this stuff today — because for guys like us, those days in the garage never really ended.

SoCal-raised hot rod artist BOMONSTER now creates his scratchboard artwork from Prescott. Inspired by drag strips, garage life and roadside Americana, his unique art celebrates the spirit of old-school roddin’ and backroad adventure. Artwork shown is available at bomonster.com. Follow @thebomonster or email bo@bomonster.com.