I handcrafted this hollow wood surfboard using the strip-build technique over a wood frame – one strip of wood at a time.
It’s a classic Speed shape surfboard with artwork depicting a manta ray in motion. There are several hundred segments of wood in this piece. I used several species – mostly paulownia, redwood, and poplar. I never use paint or tinted stain because the colors come naturally from within the wood. In this surfboard, the orange colors are padauk, and the darker brown and black colors are wenge and walnut.
The artwork on the deck is a stylized manta ray with intricate tribal-like design elements. I added the long trailing streams (very thin strips of wood) to convey motion and speed – as if the manta ray is flying through the ocean.
