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, November 25, 2016

Goofing around at the end of a busy week, best time to print our new OSF X @waybad BLACK PLAGUE rat tee. Available on the OSF table at the @sketchtoronto 20 year party Thursday Dec. 1


Pitching skatepark designs to Adrian Giacca to support a project at the Milagros School in Cerrito, Peru


Sick Co.

This is my second year at OSF and I’ve launched a new brand. Sick Co. exists to release your inner sicko and defy the mainstream. As you can see from this sign/skateboard I’ve made for my Pop-Up Shop table, the art for my new brand is siiick!
This sign is a custom jig sawed shape made out of seven plies of
Canadian Maple just like a regular skateboard. My custom lettering is a font that is drippy and looks like it is melting like this soft serve ice cream cone. I spray-painted it in my signature brand colours, except for the ice cream cone’s beige. The green represents a grungy and unappealing look that a lot of my customer are interested in. My brand is more for outsiders who are looked at by society as different. In my view we are all sickos at some point!
I’m really challenging myself to make better quality art and products this year before I graduate in June. Come check out my table at our end of the semester Pop-Up Shop on January 27th from 7-9pm at Anomaly (46 Spadina Suite 200). I’ll be selling new Sick Co. hoodies, tees, hats, boards, stickers and buttons. Hope to see you there!

Chewing over ideas for the OSF Rats Nest for Come Up To My Room @gladstonehotel (Jan. 2017)


In time for the holidays, some wood burned coffee-themed art gifts from OSF Students X @champstiles available @craftedcoffee !


Anomaly Mentors helping OSF Designers plan their Jan. 27th Pop-Up Shop


@legendsleague on building a personal brand: OSF x @anomaly Business Program Lunch & Learn


New OSF x WAY BAD street deck in development: Dropping January 2017!


Pro Bono Ontario Lawyers are doing a workshop with OSF Student SK8 Brands in class today...


CONCEPT

CONCEPT: This is my first year at Oasis Skateboard Factory. I've been boarding for about three years and stumbled on Oasis as the chance to produce my own boards. I've gone through a lot of design changes but now feel most confidant with this design. I'm inspired by the look of architectural blueprints, the geometric designs are intriguing to me.
I started with a blank deck and a full layer of white paint and then I taped off lines to form triangles. I found the design more intricate than I thought it would be at first. As random as it looks there was a coherency that i found I needed because to randomly place lines leads to the formation of boxes which i didn't want. However, you can't just not place lines or else you don't get the art.

Originally I found my designs overly complicated. Eventually i came to the conclusion that i shouldn't strive for more than I could achieve and just take what i know and roll with it.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Exchange of skills, knowledge & culture: OSF Students teach one of our Native Studies Mentors Brian Wright-McLeod how to press a skateboard during his day with us in the studio


It's OSF's Tshirt Pitch day to a panel of experts including Ottawa's WAY BAD


Board for client Miss Fluffy Soufflé delivered today!


Artist talk by WAY BAD today at the Gladstone Hotel: New OSF X WAY BAD skateboard dropping in January!


Brian Wright-McLeod shared his graphic novel Red Power and taught our Native Studies class about the Sundance Ceremony: a skateboard collab in the works...


Thanks @champstiles for installing your collab with OSF Gr.12 Art Students @craftedcoffee today: Thanks to @craftedcoffee & @pilotcoffee for this beautiful spot to sell some art that would make perfect holiday gifts!


Reminder to Students that the Community Centre is closed for Remembrance Day on Friday the 11th so class will relocate to the Gladstone Hotel (Meet at Scadding at 10:30am then we'll walk to 1214 Queen West)


Our student @durb_skateboards is collaborating with @peaceandcotton on some dye-sub veneer boards and we are excited to see the experiments!!!


Crewel Intentions

Crewel Intentions:
Heeyyyo, I’m the baby of the bunch I’m only 16 might as well be a babbling toddler. This is my first year at Oasis Skateboard Factory and it's also my first skateboard at OSF. 
My brand is Crewel Intentions. We exist to recreate old art forms in a new way.
To make my board I glued a bunch of wood together, seven sheets to be exact, but you don't want to hear about that, you can read every other description on here, it's essentially the same except I used an Xacto knife a lot to fix my mistakes because I messed up a lot! But that's alright, I'll do better next time.
The image on my skateboard is a deer on the side of a highway in the morning sun. The deer is purple, blue, dead and filled with stuffing, just like the stuffing in a toy. Deer represent many things, and one of those things is the idea of regeneration or rebirth, so my deer can represent the idea of the death of something in our lives like childhood for instance, and starting a new beginning The sun coming up represents a new day or a new beginning also. I like the idea that we can change ourselves, and don't have to always stay the same and can in some ways regenerate, like when you die in a video game. 

I prefer to let other people make up their own mind about what my art means to them, and not try to influence them. When my art has someone else's meaning it seems more interesting and powerful and it makes it a shared experience. Look out for my next weird project @crewel_intentions

Catcall Boards

Catcall Boards: I'm 18 years old. This is my first semester at OSF. I'm originally from Niagara Falls and I came to Toronto to have more experiences. My brand is Catcall and we exist to empower women to speak out about sexism in the skate industry. 
For my first board I decided to do a girly yet dark theme. I wanted to make a board with a message because there are people like Donald Trump degrading women. The character on my board looks bad ass but is also girly. It's important because there are so many kinds of women and we don't all have to be the same. It's also important to show women can be tough because there are a lot of stereotypes that put women down. For instance, it's seen as an insult to call a man a woman- ex: "you throw like a girl." What does that say about how we think about women in our culture? 
I made this deck by pressing seven layers of veneer in a Roarockit vacuum bag. Then I did the woodworking before doing a pink "dip" on my board and speckling splashes of colour. The graphic was finished with a tape stencil and paint marker. By speckling candy colour paint on the board I gave the deck texture while making it feel girly and happy. I used the principle of design of contrast by making my main image black and white so it pops out and draws your eye. The contrast between the cheerful colours and the black and white can also represent how women present themselves on the outside vs how they feel on the inside. 

Overall I feel like the deck represents my brand and ideas- a girly but dark feel. Next time I'll improve on my line work and proportions. People should be watching out for more from Catcall and the women's movement!

durb skateboards

durb skateboards: This is my second year at OSF and this year I created a new brand called durb skateboards. Durb is a nickname my friends and I have for each other. My brand is all about skateboarding at its core and the community formed through skating.
My first board is a street deck vacuum pressed with 7 plys of Canadian maple. I started by pressing the board onto a mold to form the shape then I started the woodworking. First I scraped the edge then sanded the whole board going from 80 grit sandpaper to 220 grit. After the woodworking was done I taped off the edge of the board and spray painted it black. The rest was done with a white paint marker. My inspiration for this board comes from Polar and Dime skateboards. I really like the clean simple style of Dime and I like the unique creative graphics from Polar. The person in this graphic is supposed to represent all the people that yell at me for skateboarding down the street, or who call the police on me for skating a bench that is rarely used anyway. It represents the people who don’t understand skateboarding so they decide to hate it.

Overall I am happy with the first board under my new company, but there is always room for improvement. I will use the things I learned making this board to improve my next board. I really want to make a custom shaped board in the future so this will be valuable experience for that.

Drip Inc.

Drip Inc.: I'm 17 years old and I've been attending OSF for two semesters. This program has helped me create my own brand and has taught me the ins and outs of the skate industry. Because of OSF I now have a brand called Drip Inc. We exist to celebrate accidents and find beautify in all mistakes. 
This board is a simple box logo image with a beautiful wood grain face. It was inspired by Supreme and the Hello My Name Is stickers. The box was made with white spray paint and a tape stencil for clean edges. The face was free handed with a black paint marker. For elements and principles of design I used space and size. For space I dropped the graphic in the middle of the deck, letting a lot of the woodgrain show through. I think the wood is really beautiful and it kept the design simple. For size I tried to make the drips different sizes to make it look like liquid. The contrast between the background and the face makes the graphic stand out more. 

Overall I think the board turned out well. Next time I'll experiment with different layouts. Expect a lot more decks and some new apparel from the Drip Inc all season collection.

Queasy Rider

Queasy Rider: I’m a 17 year old student, in my first year at Oasis Skateboard Factory. Due to my strong interest in visual art and creativity, I knew that OSF was the right school for me. I really enjoy experimenting with different mediums by creating pieces. I have been designing and creating characters since I was very young, I have worked to make my art and style unique and one of a kind. 
My brand is Queasy Rider; it exists to connect sick art with sick people. I mainly produce art for people who enjoy grotesque imagery and to those who have illnesses (and a sense of humor.) My goal with my art is to spread awareness and help young people who have spent most of their lives in hospitals, specifically, The Hospital for Sick Children. My goal is to work with The Hospital for Sick Children and make art with patients so I can raise money to support efforts in treating the children.
Some influences and inspirations behind my art are classic movie monsters, comics, masks and detailed sculptures. Since I was very young, I have been a fan of horror movies and special effects. Someone who has had a big influence on my art throughout my life is Rob Bottin. He is a special make up effects creator, who did work for John Carpenter. Another person whose work I look up too is, Rick Baker. Rick Baker is also a special make up effects creator who was behind Men in Black, Gremlins 2, amongst other great films. Some talented illustratorsthat also influence my work are Greg Capullo, and Cody Schibi.
When people think of sickness it can be scary, there is a stigma and stereotypes that surround people who have illnesses. I try to represent these stereotypes and stigmas by bringing that exaggeration to a visual surface. For example, some people can find discomfort in things like tumors and cysts, so my aim is to really animate those fears with creepy characters. I want to use the proper human anatomy to help educate people around illnesses. My goal is to confront peoples exaggerated ideas when it comes to illnesses while also educating them through my art. 
I used spray paint and stencils for the background and faces; I then went in with some acrylic paint and painted some details that I couldn’t get with spray paint. Finally I used a paint marker and did some final touches that made it really pop, I decided to keep the wood visible so that the colors really stand out. My use of movement in the slime between each face helps move your eye from the top to the bottom, I used heavy line work and dark colors on the center of the board so that the other two faces would attract the eye. 
The actual design on my board is of a face repeated three times, each representing a different anatomical system. The one on the top is a character, it has a few cysts and an abnormal amount of build up above his left eye making it a little covered, the face in the middle is him without his skin, it is just muscle and tissue, he looks goofier than anything. The bottom is him with only bone. Breaking down the images, the first face is quite animated the build ups, when you strip him down to no skin, the viewer can easily see that this character doesn’t look much different from anyone. 

This is the first board I have made and it was both a challenge and joy to work on. Next time I will take my time and really think about the process. I had some difficulty cutting my stencils so taking my time in the future will help me quite a bit.

OSF FREE SK8 DAY generously donated by CJ SKATEPARK!


Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Support our Students: OSF Community Council Meeting this Thursday Nov. 10, 7-9PM hosted @roarockit 's 880 Millwood location


OSF FREE SK8 DAY generously donated by CJ SKATEPARK!


ETE:

ETE: I'm a 17 year old toronto artist. My brand is Explore •Tranform •Explore or ETE. ETE exist to empower divirsity in a world poisoned with the idea of perfection. Everybody is different and that what makes you perfect atleast thats what ETE believes in.
ETE's first board of this year was a lot of fun for me improving from the styles and techinces I used last year. This year I love the idea of abstract backgrounds and hand painted characters giving each board I create a truly one of a kind image. For the first graphic of the year I decided to paint a snake, but no average snake it had to scream it was different from the first glance and so that's what I did creating a very unquie snake with one massive eye replacing its head, I handpainted the snake over top an freehand spray painted background. Even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to exactly recreate this board making it a great role model for diversity and perfect for ETE first board of the season.
I'm really happy with my first board and the direction ETE is heading in. There been a lot of growth from last year and we aren't stopping. This season ETE will be experimenting with more new productions having our perfectly imperfected graphics on a diverse collections of productions to match the people buying them.