The face of a giant bathing woman seems to rise up from the icy waters of an undisclosed Arctic location beside the fragmented remains of a rapidly melting glacier, snow-capped mountains in the distance. That there are no other obvious signs of human activity in the lonely landscape scene only reinforces the sense that this figure is out of place. For Sean Yoro, the surfboard-balancing artist otherwise known as Hula, she’s putting a human face on a very pressing global problem.

Having built a name for himself painting serene portraits of women in waterside locations and even onto the rusting remains of an abandoned ship, Yoro impresses both with his skills as an artist and the novelty of his method. While he normally paints in situ, this new setting required a different approach, and he painted on acrylic panels instead, mounting them on chunks of ice.

The paintings are designed to dissolve over time (presumably in a way that won’t harm the environment, given the earth-centric message of this piece), highlighting the time-sensitive nature of this issue.

“In the short time I was there, I witnessed the extreme melting rate first hand as the sound of ice cracking was ac instant background noise while painting,” says Yoro. “Within a few weeks these murals will be forever gone, but for those who find them, I hope they ignite a sense of urgency, as they represent the millions of people in need of our help who are already being afflicted from the rising sea levels of climate change.”

Hawaiian artist HULA paints the head and arm of a floating woman onto the rusted steel surface of an abandoned ship, all while balancing on a surfboard. The woman’s face appears and disappears with the tides, the rising water sometimes only revealing her hand. This large-scale guerrilla mural is the latest waterside work to be completed by HULA, who’s known for his unusual balancing act technique.

Otherwise known as Sean Yoro, the Oahu-born, NYC-based artist gained attention this summer for translating his oil paintings on canvas to urban surfaces located along canals or other bodies of water. HULA’s favorite subjects are bathing women, painted with photorealistic detail onto crumbling concrete.

The artist was inspired to create ‘Ho’i Mai’ (which translates to ‘Come Back’) on the stern of a half-sunken ship off the Hawaiian coast after watching the water rise and fall as the tides change throughout the day.  Floating out to work alongside the ship on his paddle board, HULA hand-painted the image without the apparent use of a projector or, in fact, anything other than a few cans of paint and some brushes.

Yoro hopes to turn the ship into a public work of art rather than just a forgotten vessel left to slowly sink into the water over the decades. The painting won’t last forever, though, as the artist uses traditional oil paints knowing they won’t stand up to the elements for long.

“I use it in a traditional old masters’ technique, mixing both loose brushwork with very tight strokes of sharp lines,” he told CNN. “I’m always trying to make the paint have a juicier texture to really help the portrait come alive. Oil paint outdoors definitely isn’t the best and it doesn’t last nearly as long as acrylics, but I kinda like that my figures have their own lifespan.”

Leaving those stand-up paddleboarders in the proverbial dust, these new battery-powered boards will let you cruise lakes, rivers, cannals and other bodies of water all without that formerly-critical ingredient: waves.

The Spanish surf company Onean has unveiled two models, the Carver and Manta, respectively designed for serious surfers to slalom across calm water and to let more casual surfers to smoothly explore still surfaces in remote places.

Each version has speed controls tied to a handheld remote and optional foot slots for greater traction. A third model, the Blade, is also in production but details about the board have yet to be released.

The Carver owes its look to the classic longboard and its speed (around 5 miles per hour) to an interchangeable onboard battery powering an axial water pump. The wider Manta has is slightly slower and wider, made for cruising.

The battery life on the faster variant is only 20 minutes, at which point it can be swapped with a spare, but the latter has more energy storage, allowing for up to 2 hours of travel and enabling more ambitious explorations.

Aside from obvious coastal uses (like providing a backup board on calm days at the beach), electric boards can bring an entirely new sport to landlocked but water-covered places like Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes.