Deck
Designs!
Students
at South Kamloops Secondary have a unique opportunity this semester to work
with an artist in residence: VAUGHN WARREN. We are thrilled to have
Vaughn, from Kamloops BC, work with grade 9 and 10 art students, guiding us through the process
of airbrushing artwork on skate decks. This project has been made
possible through ArtStarts in Schools, by providing grant opportunities that
promote a connection with youth to professional arts experiences in the
classroom. In addition, we are thankful
to OLIVE Skateboards for their support of visual art programs in Canadian
schools.
As we
begin our journey in creating upwards of 50 painted skate deck designs, I have asked
grade 10 student Bailey S. to share our process to date:
Over the past few weeks, we have been
working on designing a finished copy for our skate decks, starting with a small
wire frame of a skateboard, subsequent colour models, leading to a full sized
blown-up skate deck copy. Vaughn Warren, a local artist who is working with our
class, is sharing his expertise teaching aspects of design and airbrush mediums.
Airbrushing seems like a difficult
technique to work with. Unlike sketching it is harder to erase and
especially when you learn a new art style, the first time you actually create a
piece isn’t always the best. Some of the kids in my class were
apprehensive to the idea, not knowing if it was something they would be good at
or enjoy. Others, including myself, were super excited. I quote one of my friends
in the class who was weary at first, “... suddenly it hits you. This is
actually happening; you can make your own skate deck, and you can keep it!”
Creating a
successful skate deck will take time, direction, and artistic considerations. After
we finished a contour drawing of the final design, we moved on to creating
colour models colouring many photocopies of the original design. Finally, we blew up the image in hopes of
soon transferring the design onto the skate deck. This
process requires students to think ahead, plan, and consider more ways to
look at one project idea.
