Mitch Revs pay homage to Merewether Beach poster artist Mick Eggleston

But they have a beach in common.

They were both surfers.

And, they are both artists.

Popular artist Mitch "Revs" Resevsky, is finally paying homage to Mick Eggleston, one of Newcastle's most popular cartoonists and commercial artists in the last half of the 20^th century.

Revs, whose popularity has soared in the last five years with his colourful beachlife illustrations, murals and merchandise, has never forgotten the influence of Eggleston's style on his own work.

One of Revs' first paintings was his own rendition of illustrator Mick Eggleston's classic cartoon-style Merewether Beach artwork.

Eggleston, who worked for the Newcastle Herald and Newcastle Sun art departments, and later worked in commercial art, painted the Merewether Beach cartoon in 1988. A limited edition run of 200 posters were printed, and the original had long been hung in the Beach Hotel in Merewether.

''I was really drawn to it,'' Revs says of that original artwork. "That's where my style has come from.

"He was mentor and hero. And he doesn't even really know it. I built my career off his 1988 Merewether beach artwork."

Revs did his own, modern version of that poster, with great success in 2104. When he first completed it, Gary Callinan, the father of his mate Ryan Callinan, said he should show it to Mick Eggleston, so he took him down to meet Eggleston at home.

The visit had a lasting impact on Revs, catching a glimpse of a professional artist in his own creative space.

Now, Revs, who runs his own gallery and print reproduction business on Hunter Street in Newcastle, is doing a special run of 100 prints of Eggleston's original Merewether Beach artwork, as a tribute to "Eggo".

Every print will be numbered and signed by Eggleston. The price is $200 each.

"We will sell them for him," Revs says. "We want to create a conversation around Mike, the impact he had."

Eggleston was born in Newcastle and later moved to Merewether. He was involved with the Merewether Surfboard Club from its inception.

As he told Revs and Shaun Wood on their podcast Art Talk last month, the idea for the poster came to him one day while he was talking to a few mates on the steps of the Beach Hotel. "I said, 'I'm going to do a painting of this one day,' "he recalled, as he cast his eyes over the scene.

The artwork includes mates in the surf and on land, as well as vehicles from the day, and, of course, the original Merewether Surf House.

The original artwork hung in the Beaches until recently, when John Twohill sold the pub and returned the artwork to Eggleston.

Eggleston's artwork covered the gamut, from editorial cartoons to train sketches and everything in between.

On the podcast, Eggleston said he's given away doing art. "I've got some very serious problems with my hands," he said. "I hate to be able to pick up a pen and not be able to draw."

The Eggleston posters can be pre-ordered at mitchrevs.com from next week.

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