The best part of my job...

One of the absolute best things about my chosen work is that I get to see a very special
look on the faces of children of all ages.  Whether it's a group of adults learning how to carve, sculpt, or paint...or a group of roughly 7 year old children, the look is the same.  There is a recognition that creation can be a form of 'play' and that 'play' doesn't necessarily mean 'waste of time'.  The truly awesome thing about sharing with children is the complete sense of exploration that they have and the willingness to try new things.

On Thursday I had a chance to share some time with a great group of children, teachers and parents at a school called "Lingua Garden" a bilingual preschool in Peoria, Illinois. 

Denise Hecker-Leitch invited me after spending part of an afternoon at my workshop.  We've been discussing a sign for her shop. She saw a sculpture I made for my daughter and asked about some private instruction on how the sculpture was done.  I spent a great afternoon with Denise and her two children sculpting and talking about making things.

Since I was to speak to a larger group of children, I thought it would be great to do a little project. So I whipped up a quick carving that we could all paint!

I took a robot pal with me, and we spent a little time talking about what it is I do.

I understood, though, that these kids wanted to get their own hands into a project, so we quickly moved from talking to doing!  Instead of asking them to paint anything specific, I thought it best to let each child pick their own paint colors and to personalize their own rockets any way they liked.  
We had a great time laughing and painting and making.  I was so pleased to see each child do a very different and creative version of the paint on their rocket.  Some added stripes. Some did cool mixes of color...all special.

If that's not a great way to spend a day outside the shop, I don't know what one is! 

January--

A new year is always a good time to be thinking about doing new things...and correcting things from the year before.

In my case, I made a decision to upgrade a control board on my Shopbot. What does that mean?  It increases my machine's speed by about 3.5 times.  It also improves the accuracy/resolution by about 2 to 2.5 times. All in all, a great improvement.  It now seems like it's screaming across the table!  This means things get carved more quickly and resolution is generally improved.

It took about 3 hours to change out the board. Actually the board replacement only took about 10 minutes.  I decided to generally clean everything and apply new grease to all the rack and pinions (insert Tool Time Tim grunts here).  I also cleaned up lots of wiring and attached it more securely to the table and the computer. This keeps it mostly off the floor and less likely to have a wire come loose or get pulled out.

That means, of course, that I needed to run a quick sample to see how fast it ran a file and to see how the accuracy looked in reality and not just on paper.  I carved this piece in just under 35 minutes. It's about 12" x 22".  I need to do some tweaking on the ramping values and I think I can get even better times on 3D items. (wha? This generally refers to how fast the machine takes corners and speeds up coming out of a corner).

For those of you who speak french, I assume you'll be shaking your heads and saying, "oh Doug...no". 

I'm very pleased with the carve.  In fact, I didn't even do a profile cut around the "Skin Care" letters as I would have before.  The 3D pass was decent enough to just leave it.  As a comparison, with my previous control board/motor setup this would have taken about 2 to 2 1/2 hours because of all the texture. 

When it comes to skin care, use sunblock folks. Protect that skin from burning!

Summer Time Means Murals!!

This summer has been very busy with a variety of murals that I've participated in painting.
I painted in Shipshewana, Indiana  and Kewanee, Illinois as well as Centerville, Iowa.

It was a pleasure to work with everyone that participated in these murals.  It's always a joy to bring color and life to a community through a mural, especially one with historical connections!
I also completed my first sign/mural at the shop and the work isn't over! It looks like there are at least a couple more murals to work on before the end of season. What a great way to spend the summer!

The Cobbler's Children Have Shoes!

After a very busy mural season, I've had a chance to work on some projects at the shop...including my own mural/sign. I'll be moving on to 3D items now, but this is a start...

I separated the mural into 4 pieces...each cut out of aluminum panels as my building is corrugated.

After I finished the banner for the bottom, it was time to get it all assembled on the wall...

I've intentionally left room above it to install a goose-neck light that will illuminate it at night.

Now I'll paint the door and add the address number... Then it's time to begin the 3D rocket mailbox!

Putting our Brand on Kewanee again!

I just spent the last few days with a great group of people...we were painting a mural in Kewanee, Illinois that celebrates the life of Neville Brand. Neville is an actor that grew up in Kewanee and starred in television shows like Laredo and in many many movies, often as a bad guy.

Here's the thing: There were 5 official painters, but many many others that helped make it happen.  There were people making us food, letting us sleep in their homes, and a hundred other things that helped make the experience something special for us all.  I knew we would have fun, but had no idea it would be a one mural walldog event with all the trimmings.  Thanks to everyone that helped!

The big surprise was a visit from Neville Brand's brother, Bryce, who at 92 years young told us many stories about his older brother. In fact, Bryce took the picture of Neville for the Kewanee football team as seen in the mural!

Back in the saddle

There are plenty of excuses for not keep up with posts, and I won't put you to sleep with mine. Suffice it to say that Elena and I have cleaned up and fixed a bike for her to ride this spring and she loves it.  I'll be joining her on some awesome adventures!

It's time to get caught up and share some things I've been doing... getting this boat on the wall was one:

I've also been working on my painting skills.... A visit to my friend who owns a brewery was an excuse to break out some brushes and do a little "antique" work:

I was having so much fun painting, I decided to use one of the leftover doors in my shop to paint my favorite car:

Don't misunderstand...my love of 3 dimensional work is strong and thriving...but I've found that a little painting practice can be just what the doctor ordered!

Stay tuned for the next installment of what's been going on!!

Mardi Gras!

There is a group known as the "Letterheads" that has been around for about 100 years.  At various times they have been more active than others.  This last week, there was an event in Mazeppa, Mn.
My schedule was such that I could only attend a portion of the event, and I enjoyed every moment.

My job was to help with technical issues (projectors, printers, computers) and talk a little bit about magic sculpt and how I use it.  I thought it would be a good time to dig out a fun project I'd started a couple years ago...the "Nautilus" from 20,000 under the sea.  I didn't want to sculpt a straight copy of Harper Goff's design, but add some of my own flair and twist to it.  It's about 33" long. 

We had several groups of children from the local school visit...ages ranging from 6-12.  They were able to see artists hand painting lettering, mural painting and pin striping.  Artists visited from all kinds of countries outside the US including:  The UK, Germany, Australia, Scotland, Brazil, Canada and Iowa.

There were presentations about painting, lettering, chalk board art...and lots and lots of laughter.

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Eventually, it was time to say goodbye and return home....while I was getting back into the swing of things and setting up other work, I took a few minutes to put some paint on my sculpture...

Multi-tasking

Today was a day to have multiple things going all at once....

First, a good friend in Aledo needed me to do a little carving for him...as his machine is
having some problems....so this 8' long sign has been carving most of the afternoon:

I've been painting the various parts of the Stark County Ambulance sign...they brought by a patch with the proper colors and that's been a tremendous help matching!

While I was painting, I thought about how much I enjoy re-using old containers that would otherwise have gone directly to some land-fill.  I feel that at the very least I'm giving them a second, third and sometimes 4th or 5th life before they finally end up in the dumpster. It's a little thing, but one that matters.  Since I only use water based paints, I don't have to be concerned about reactions with the plastic.

Tomorrow I should be able to wrap up the Ambulance sign and my friends 8' carving....

Shovel shovel shovel!

We've had more snow here, so much of my morning was spent digging out the drive and getting a path cleared at the shop....and I just know if I buy a snowblower, we'll never see another inch.

Either way, I made some time to wrap up Sinister Vision's booth logo sign.

Now it's back to the ambulance project!!

Sinister isn't always scary.

For some time I've followed an amazing illustrator named Chad Savage.  He has a website called
Sinister Visions.  http://www.sinistervisions.com/
He has created some wonderful art and even some cool fonts!
Many of the fonts are free... check it out:
http://www.sinistervisions.com/fonts/

The challenge?  He could use a dimensional version of his logo to take
to shows and events:

It needs to be durable, but lighter is better. 

This version is about 31" in diameter.

I've primed it, given it 3 coats of black and now a coat of white on top...this is in preperation
for the orange, which will also get 3 coats.  It will get one more coat of white before I go to
the orange.

I plan to make the orange match the logo..but I will try it with a "metallic" version
of it first.

Aspire to build more!

One of the reasons that I use Vectric Aspire is that each custom job is unique and I know that there are several ways I can approach the work.  I thought I would show you a couple ways it might be done. Bear in mind, there are a couple dozen more ways to do it, and I'll talk briefly about how that might be done, too!

First, here is an approach I enjoy.  It attacks the job by assuming we'll carve the project from a single piece of material.  I have the luxury of having built all the vectors, so I'm in full control of those.  I begin by building a project that matches the size of the material I'll carve and it's thickness.... Next, I import the vectors I've created (in this case I built them in Illustrator based on an existing logo).

Once I have the vectors imported and sized to my material, I can choose how I want to carve.  In this case, I've just quickly set up a series of pocket cuts to show you how it can be done.  Each "pocket" removes material around or within a vector as I have selected.  Here is a view of a couple of pockets cut "virtually":

One thing to note is that I can set the depth of each pocket and fully control how "deep" each layer goes.  It's great to be able to view each modification I've made and Aspire even allows me to revert if one of them isn't what I wanted...awesome!

Once I've set the various pockets up, I can finish by setting up a perimeter carve to cut the shield out from the background material:

In this case, I've only carved these red lines to represent the flag stripe locations, as I will hand sculpt the "wave" in the flag.  I certainly could do this model work in Aspire, but I like to keep certain things in my projects "hand" rendered. I think it adds to them.

In addition to this, I can add special features to the lettering or edges of the objects with relative ease...but let's look at another approach:


I could also choose to create a "grayscale" version of the logo:

I could then import this into Vectric Aspire and convert the image to a 3d file based on the various colors representing different heights:

I could then create a perimeter cut and again remove the waste once it finished...the only way to control the depths would be to modifiy the original gray scale colors.

Yet another way to handle this would be to bring in a full color image or use the grey scale and create vectors within Aspire from the image, those could then be used in a fashion similar to the first one shown here...

Another approach used by some folks is to cut out pieces using primarily perimeter cuts and to "build up" the project as a series of pieces. I did this on the McCauley lettering for a farm sign I recently created (see earlier posts)

The point?

Vectric Aspire allows me to build the project however best suits me, the material and the work.  I have the freedom to control every aspect and ensure that I can control how much or little work I want to do on the back end.  That's pretty awesome.

In An Emergency...

I'm working on several designs right now for different clients.
This one is for the local ambulance.  They have multiple locations
in the area and have taken control of the Wyoming location.

  Here is what the current sign looks like:

The design I'm working on is based on a badge that they currently use. 

The plan is to do much of the sheild in 3D and the lettering as well...  There may be additional
changes to the design as I work with the client to nail down details.  I think much of the sheild
will hopefully be in metalic colors.

One last stroke...

The sign needed a final stroke on the outside of the shield...now as soon as it's warm enough
to get the poles in the ground, we'll get it hung into place!

Nearing completion

I made good progress today, despite several visitors. 
The farm sign is very near complete, with some minor touch-ups and a few small things to
do.  While some things have changed, I think it's fairly close to the original design.
I had an absolute blast sculpting the tractor and even more fun getting to paint it.

One thing I'll do is that I'm going to put some clear resin in the areas
that represent the windows of the cab to give it that glassy shine.