Why be bored in school? Go to a Skateboard School! This Toronto District School Board alternative school design program helps students earn high school credits and graduate by creating their own brand and running a skateboard business / professional design studio. OASIS SKATEBOARD FACTORY (OSF) "ON THE GRIND": TDSB's ART & ENTREPRENEURSHIP O.G.s since 2006!

Friday, December 18, 2015

OSF Classroom/Studio is now closed and will reopen on Jan. 4: have a great winter break!


OSF Winter Feast!


OSF grill masters and pit bosses at our Korean Grill House winter feast!


Custom board for the Strombo show!


OSF Student Presentations of their Logos and Brand Purpose Statements to their ANOMALY Mentors


OSF x Anomaly Mentorship Session: Students getting advice on presenting their brands to the public on January 29 at the Toronto office


OSF students consulting their ANOMALY mentor in their unique MINI meeting room


The BEDLAM goat baby mini


Custom board and grip for Tombstones Motorcycles


Students are delivering custom holiday gifts for OSF customers and clients before we close for Winter Break on the 18th









Bryan @legendsleague leads a Lunch & Learn session at Anomaly to inspire our student designers to own their own stories and develop their personal brands


Xmas came early for this comic book fan!


Dropping in January: New OSF shop deck collab with Kevin Lyons @klyonsnatborn !!!


Another holiday commission complete!


Holiday commission complete!


Thursday, December 17, 2015

*Applications to OSF for Semester 2:


*Applications to OSF for Semester 2:  We will be doing Info Sessions on January 6, 13 & 20 for students wanting to start school in February, so the due date for completed application packages will be Friday, January 22 at 3:30PM. Interviews/hands-on design experiences for selected applicants  will happen on Monday, January 25th with accepted students called on the 28th.


Monday, December 14, 2015

Get on Board: Join the Oasis Skateboard Factory Student Design Team for Semester 2 (February)!


























Get on Board: Join the Oasis Skateboard Factory Student Design Team for Semester 2 (February)!
To get an application, attend an Info Session held Wednesdays at 9AM, January 6, 13 & 20, 2016 in Room 3, Scadding Court Community Centre (707 Dundas Street West at Bathurst)
































Saturday, December 12, 2015

A recap of our OSF x Longboard Living collection for SKATEISTAN:


http://blog.longboardliving.com/skateistan-fundraiser-with-oasis-skateboard-factory/


Still Available! An awesome holiday gift for a great cause:

http://www.longboardliving.com/collections/completes/products/35skateistanxoasisbamboopintail


Our skate rat mascot is hiding out in our new OSF Spray Cap Dispenser!


OSF x Spacing Magazine Toronto-themed Skateboards available for the Holiday gift-giving season at the Spacing Store (401 Richmond St. W) @spacingmagazine


KRUPT


Prototype #1 off his new student shaped Looner street deck mold


Last Call! OSF designed boards available at Longboard Living with all proceeds donated to SKATEISTAN




Buying a custom mini, street deck or longboard from an OSF Student Designer? You can get a special price for your trucks, wheels, bearings, bushings, griptape and hardware at Longboard Living (202 Augusta in Kensington Market). @longboard_living


Presentation on Creative Careers at OSF by OCADU


Putting together the new OSF classroom Spray Caps & Gum Ball Ma


Last year's OSF fundraiser board for MOVEMBER now hangs as a light in their Toronto office!


Screenprinting on different NWO Skateboard shapes...


ATLAST We're LOST!




I’m seventeen years old and a new student at the Oasis Skateboard Factory. My brand is ATLAST. ATLAST exists to celebrate and accept that we’re lost.

The theme of my skateboard graphic is being lost and not wanting to be found. I executed this theme by placing a path in the middle of the picture plane of my pintail longboard. I surrounded it with two oddly-coloured trees to disorient the viewer. I then added signs showing different directions and path. The main focus of the board is the dark blue ATLAST sign. The arrow is broken and pointing in the opposite direction of the made path. This represents ATLAST’s decision to never follow paths that are made for you and instead revel in being lost. My inspiration for this board came from the scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice finds her self lost in the forest.

In my design, I used muted contrasting colours to avoid a discordant image. But I also used a range of analogous colours. The green in the grass brings the blue in the trees and the ATLAST sign together with the yellow ochre path. The focal point is ATLAST arrow that advertises my brand. I also brought a sense of depth by creating shadows in the trees and giving a sense of perspective with the winding path.

After pressing and shaping this pintail I sanded the board with varied grits of sand paper. I then woodburned my graphic into my board to create a outline of the image as well as showing the wood grain in the trees. After that I used watercolours to stain the wood.

Personally, I’m very happy with my board. I love how the woodburned wood grain looks and how the colours looked after the board was sealed. I learned how to apply a glazed finish and how to how to measure and drill truck holes.


GROW


My brand is Grow Boards. My brand is based around the childhood fascination most people have with animals and nature. The image of the tree is supposed to make you think of nature and the company name “grow” in the roots is because roots are one of the main ways trees grow, by absorbing water and nutrients through their roots and keeping the plant anchored in the ground.

One inspiration for this skateboard deck would have to be Habitat Skateboards because they use a lot of animals in their graphics and they really remind you of nature. The materials I used to make this deck were tape, a box cutter, spray paint and a paint marker. Once the board was pressed and sanded, I covered it in tape and cut out the bark of the tree, the roots and the word "grow". Then I spray painted all those parts a few different colours of brown. After, I covered it in tape again and cut out the leaves and the word "grow" a second time and spray painted those a few different colours of green. Then, I dripped a bit of the paint onto the leaves to add some texture. To finish it off, I added some details to the tree with a paint marker.

One of the elements of design I used was space because I left some of the board blank. Colour was used on the leaves and the tree bark to build contrast and to balance out the deck. What I am trying to communicate through this board is that maybe we can all relate to and appreciate nature a little bit more, I know its hard to enjoy or even care about nature living in a big city but I do think its important to be thankful and appreciative of nature. I am happy with how the board turned out and I learned a lot from the process. It was my first time pressing a board and I found that really interesting. I am not too experienced as an artist and it was the first time I used tape and spray paint to create the different layers. Overall, it was a really fun process creating my first skateboard deck and I would love to do it again in the future.


Ambrosia Boards


My brand Ambrosia Boards exists to feed your inner funk. This board shows a bunch of cutout men repeated in a pattern to look like a crowd and the one funky dude sticks out. The brand The Hundreds inspired my boards colour scheme of black, white and purple.

To make this board, I used a spray technique where I used short, straight blasts so the colours didn't go anywhere I didn't want them to. I sprayed the background black and used a stencil to trace all the people so they looked the same. I sprayed them all white except the one guy who I painted purple. He represents what Ambrosia boards stands for: you should break away from being a corporate robot and be yourself.

The most important lesson I learned making this first board was how to spray a board without having it bubble up by waiting for one layer of paint to dry before spraying the next layer.


D-4MD


I am an artist, I am 18 years young. I have always had a strong interest in art. Anything that has to do with being creative is my thing. I love to sing, dance, write poetry, create fashion, and make others smile. Although I’ve been in love with art and self-expression since I was probably 11 years old, my main interest is getting closer to society, so I could try to figure out why we segregate from each other. I think people are fearful that society won’t accept individuals who are different. My goal is to become a psychologist. I’m interested in people, so that ties into my brand “D-4MD”- a brand where everybody fits in, and society’s norms are beautifully deformed.

The meaning of my board is to express my cultural and spiritual side that I feel society doesn't accept. My board is full of shapes and colors, and is marked directly in the middle with a powerful number, the lucky number 7. I have created contrast by using black and white which represent my waves and vibrations. I used the dynamic black and white to show how powerful I can feel within myself. It’s sort of a reflection for what I feel within.

I have had many different models of inspiration for this design. Most of my inspiration came from different people wearing different colours and floral and cultural patterns, as well as random paintings I have seen around Toronto. I guess I could also say I’ve inspired myself, to finally express myself completely.

For this design, I drew a full-colour template and used tape so I could spray paint all different colours in different shapes onto the board. It was a challenge because my design also has a lot of curves in it, but I used an x-acto knife to smoothly carve out all the shapes to create neat detailing.  Although I wanted to make this design super complicated, I stuck to the “keep it as simple as you can” strategy when focusing on making many tiny triangles in this design. I had to keep in mind that detail and technique go hand in hand.

What I’m trying to communicate is the idea of society being a whole, while still keeping our individual frame of uniqueness. I’m also trying to warp the mold of the mainstream, by deforming the rules of just simply being. I hope my board will let people create their own perspective of why I put the number 7 in the centre.

I’ve learned that if you want to perfect something, you have to actually be willing to practice and have the patience for it. I was prepared to create this board but I never considered the fact that perfection is different for ever person out there until I completed it. Overall, I’m very proud of myself for making my first board for “D-4MD”!


Another MOTHERBOARD rolls out of the OSF studio in time for holiday gift giving (*SOLD)


GOBZ


Learning about community resources to support youth from our friends at CTYS


Making it snow at OSF! (custom street deck mold in process)