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.
