2012/365 - Day 2

I know it isn't going to happen like this every time, but...

Wow. I love it when synchronicity happens.

This evening I tweaked my blog intention list thing and added that I wanted to use a sketchbook more often. I doctored one of the photos I took of the blue wolf-guy and printed it out and cut it out and glued it into the sketchbook that just happened to be on my desk.

When this guy turned out this way I was thinking he was some sort of guru or monk or something wrapped up in a robe. But when I was cutting out the picture I thought, "no, he looks like a guy that just stepped out of the shower and has a towel wrapped around him" and it made me laugh.

So I tried drawing some legs underneath him and added fur to his legs and chest.

Then it occurred to me -- remember that cabinet that fell down a few steps and crashed on my head and hit the floor when I was moving it down from the loft in the cat room?
Well, I just moved it again a few days ago and one of the legs came off again so I took both of the legs off and I like the cabinet a whole lot more. Anyway...




These are those legs from the cabinet. As soon as I had drawn the legs on the blue wolf-guy I knew these were his legs.















However, I did not know at the time that the saw I have been using to cut the legs off of the tomato cages (and also anything else that needs to be cut like the swimming pool floaty bopper things) is not the saw you need to cut wood.

Luckily I found my other saw and was able to cut the wood off quickly and without incident.







A photograph of what synchronicity + success looks like (for me).













And here is the blue wolf-guy with his new legs -- he stands on his own! AND the legs have feet already -- just like in the sketch!

I have plenty of work left to do on this guy, including figuring out how to attach the legs to the body...but I love it when a string of things just falls into place! Wow.

365 Day 123

okay...an example of how stuff happens to/for me

I was in my car at 7 Mile & Haggerty sitting at the light and there was a road crew putting a sign together. The one guy was maneuvering the unwieldy long legged sign into the brackets. Once it was in, it was pretty secure. Then the guy on the truck thew him a sandbag and they plopped it onto a corner of the brackety part of the structure.

A light bulb went on for me. AND there I was at 7 & Haggerty -- and there was Home Depot...synchronicity -- I was supposed to be there to see this.

I went in and found something similar to the sign parts. Then as I was looking around I found this mesh stuff that is something between chicken wire and window screen...they sell it for making armatures in a slightly lighter weight at Michaels but it is waaaaaay more expensive there. But it came in like a 10 ft. long sheet -- got the guy to cut it in half so it would fit in my car. Nice guy...he told me how when he was in grade school his class made a gigantic brontosaurus out of papier mache with a wooden structure inside.





mesh stuff and something similar to what the road crew had












Then I was looking around some more and I spotted these things for venting stoves (?) or dryers (?) -- whatever -- I KNEW what they are really for! So I grabbed some of that stuff. Then I got lag screws for later and had to go to Ace (because, duh...I didn't remember that Home Depot is not a hardware store...they have told me that many times before).





gloves, tin snips, hack saw, stuff -- fitting on my back seat just fine












The guy at Ace was really great. He figured out what bolts and nuts I would need to put the angle iron pieces together (ha...I know what it is called now). I also bought a ratchety thing set in a case for later. Probably good to have on hand. (Oh, I also got a couple of balls at Toys R Us -- they didn't have any reeeeeeally big ones, though.)





the ratchety thing set (in a case!), bolts, nuts, and balls








These will all go together to become the armature for another project that will take me a long time to do -- but this is how stuff like this comes together for me. I don't know exactly what it will be, but I know it will be some kind of beast with at least one prancey foot. It will not be anything like the giant horse, but that is where the image came from. It makes sense to me.






yeah -- I knew EXACTLY what these parts really are

















I love this statue -- it is SO HUGE -- look at me -- I'm tiny!

Me and Nina Akamu's The American Horse at Frederick Meijer Sculpture Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI