Monday, November 21, 2011
Scully
Hello, I’m a first year student at OSF. I can say for any girl or boy, whether you skateboard or not, a love for street art and marketing is what surrounds this program. I myself am not an avid skateboarder or longboarder, but I love the culture; I’m starting to learn now because of my amazing peers and family at Oasis Skateboard Factory. I was an art major at my last school which was an awesome school, very open and warm environment, but I didn’t feel like I was reaching my potential academically or artistically. I was skipping school and flunking my classes, which pointed me to the direction of looking into alternative schools; I landed with OSF because of the exposure, and the chance to do some amazing art and to push myself and realize my potential.
My longboard has a graphic of a god-like being against an empty but bold backdrop. This board has a rich red paint, brought out by the black fringes, and a background of black grey and purple, with a bold skull and body graphic completed with paint marker. I drew this character as a more intense version of one of my brand’s characters, bringing out the raw back story of my character.
My board was pressed in our classroom with Roarockit’s vacuum press technology and maple wood. There are 7 layers in my board. To apply different types of spray paint, I used tape as a stencil. Waiting for the paint to dry takes about a day. It took me about 3 weeks of shaping, sanding, planning and painting to finish my board.
This is my first big solo project; it was a bit intimidating at first, to think about making a whole board by yourself, but overall this project was really empowering. It was a lot easier than it looks, though still time consuming, and a need for teacher and peer mentoring is defiantly a must in the process. This is one of the first big OSF projects that leaves me prepared and stoked to keep going.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
KID SKWID
I moved from Brampton to Toronto for the Oasis Skateboard Factory. My grades, as well as my life, were not looking too great in Brampton; since moving here things have seriously turned around. My marks are no longer the same as room temperature. My work has been complemented. And not buffed off of walls. My favourite part of my day is walking into my classroom, not walking out of it.
The graphic on my board is of an angry squid, bursting through the tides of the daily grind. Squids are my calling card. The squid obsession is the result of an inside joke with my friends: “Life sucks, but at least you’re not a squid.”
The board is a pintail with a slight kick pressed from 7 layers of Canadian maple. After a lot of sanding and a lot of shaping, I started to lay down my graphic. I used contrasting colours of orange and blue to make the image pop off the board. I got to practice my spray paint skills with the orange gradient shading. As a final touch I filled in the black lines and added stippling with paint marker, a technique I picked up from street artist Slurg.
“Angry skwid” is a sampler for my new brand, Kid Skwid. Overall it was a good learning experience, but I’m looking forward to furthering my skills as an artist. I’ve picked up a few skills this year such as my method of splatter fading I’m hoping to make a common thing in my brand.
This is just the first of many from “KID SKWID”!
Dragon
This is my first year at OSF and my first board that I have built here at the factory and I'm very proud of it so far. It was inspired by my love of dragons. Since I was a kid, I would always draw these beastly monsters. I decided to switch it up a little and make it a little more self-reflecting. I wanted it to be a bit of an ironic design, because dragons are known as jagged and frightening creatures. My design has a dragon that’s friendly looking and has a bubbly personality.
The materials I used to make my pintail longboard were 8 layers of maple hard wood and I vacuumed pressed them to seal everything to a nice tight finish. The board features both unique designs and bright colours that blend across the board. My inspiration for my board was a board I kept seeing everywhere in stores that sold skateboards and longboards: an image of Bob Marley and a lion head intertwined. I used some of my favorite colours and negative space in my longboard graphic design. I thought that the infamous red, yellow, and green would look nice with my simple graphic and it created a nice contrast with the black creating an oblique crisp design for my board. I think my board is unique because I worked backwards on the colours; unlike most stenciled boards I put the colour on first and then placed my stencil on and covered the rest of the board with black spray paint.
This board is a design I'm very proud of because all the lines turned out clean and the board overall came out the way I had planned it to from the beginning. Personally I think that this was a great board for my first creation because it was simple yet intriguing. I think that this is the first stepping-stone for future boards where I can work on making my designs more complex and creative.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
THUMPER
Hello. I’m 17 years old and I guess you can say I love skateboarding and the culture of it.
The theme of my board is a Robot/Bunny (Thumper). My inspiration for making this board is based on my experience in grade 7; I’d tap my foot a lot and drove the teacher crazy, ha-ha, and people would tell me “STOP THUMPER” and from there it just became my Alter-Ego.
The materials I used in this board were 7 layers of maple hard wood and I vacuumed pressed them to seal everything nice and tight. I stained it for a natural look. I stencilled it and then gave it two layers of spray paint in black and white. What I thought I could have done better in making this board is to be more patient and slow down and to fill in more of the negative spaces.
I’m proud of the first board I every made and what this experience can do for me in the near future. I’m going to put this board on my wall, not riding it or thrashing it, because to me this first board is a piece of art!
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