Creating a Copper Sculpture for Balvenie's Moon Gate

For those of you that may not know, I'd like to invite you to watch Connie and I make a copper sculpture for Balvenie's Moongate. We've shown step by step how the sculpture was created. We're really proud of Penelope and the Ellusive Butterfly.

Here is a link to the thread in the Artisans Forum. If you've seen it, then you know that it turned out to be a masterpiece. We are quite proud of her.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/662975/

Janet

Here is the completed sculpture. She's kinetic. The butterfly bobs up and down, as does her arms, making the net chase the butterfly. We've amazed even ourselves.

Thanks for checking it out.

That is so neat! Ya'll are talented! Seriously. She'll look lovely in the garden. ;-)

Thanks Becky!

We've had silly grins on our faces all week long. She was the most fun thing I think I've ever done in my life. Knowing that she was being "watched" as she came to life was so exciting.

Janet

I saw the 2 videos from your link and I don't know HOW you and Connie came up with such an amazing moving sculpture. WOW! The detail in this sculpture is just unbelievable! That's really neat that you created the thread to show how she was made. Very interesting. That takes talent!!! Ya'll rock the garden! :-D

Thanks again Becky.

We definitely kept an eye on detail. THat's just the way we are.

Connie has a window tint shop and is THE tinter. She's always been a nit picker for perfection. I've seen her yank a sheet of window tint off of a vehicle that was 99% perfect, just because she wasn't happy with it. Something that the ordinary person would have never noticed. I'm kind of the same way. While making the chains, if I wasn't happy with the "knots", I cut it off and started it again.

We've got some ideas for making the thread into some type of educational video for copper working. I've had absolutely no experience in this, until September of this year. I learned so much in the making of that thread. It wasn't easy, but if a person had the right tools, and imagination, well..... the sky is the limit. We've just got to figure out the logistics of the thing.

And we want to continue having fun while making the sculptures. It was such a priviledge and a blast to be able to share this experience with Connie.

We've just gotten to know the folks around here and wanted to share our excitement with you all.

Janet

Penelope's Movies

OK, I've been making movies the majority of the day yesterday. The sunlight on the LCD lens of the camera was a killer. I had to park the tripod for the camera under the leaves of a waybigo elephant ear (as an umbrella) in order to be able to see what I was recording. I was about 10-13 ft from Penelope. That meant that I had to 1) get her going, 2) race back to the camera, 3) hit the Record button, 4) remember to turn OFF the Record button.

Sounds easy, right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I must have taken 60 videos before I had something that I could work with. As I said before, I can't edit the videos, timewise, or anything else. At least I haven't found a program to do so without having to pay for it. I was trying to get the clip under 5 MB because that's all that Connie's site would allow. I maneuvered that camera from one setting to the next until I finally got what I was looking for, in a reasonable amount of time too.

Connie and I have really had a hard time with the hosting site that Connie uses. We think that the problem some folks were having viewing the sculpture had to do with too many people looking at one time.

I signed up for another storage site last night so that you folks will be able to view her moving. I tried to consider the folks who are on dial up when I was making these movies. Some are really short, but you can still get the gist of the movements of Penelope. Others are a little longer.
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Last night, I clicked on these links and realize that the file must be downloaded at the bottom of the page in order to view them. I don't know doodly squat about this site to know if it's secure, etc. Just wanted you to know this up front.
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First for the Dial up Folks:

2 Second Clip of her moving http://www.savefile.com/files/200266 File is 1MB
9 Second Clip - Close up of her moving http://www.savefile.com/files/200274 File is 3.37 MB

For the DSL and High Speed folks

17 Second Clip.
http://www.savefile.com/files/200285
File is 6 MB

In the beginning of the clip, a real butterfly darts across right to left. There is a psssssht noise. That is either the waybigo banana leaves behind me slapping against the power lines, or it's a kinetic whirlygig type thing that is sitting on the table by the back door. Never did figure it out for sure.

This next clip is rather long... about a minute http://savefile.com/files/200298 (21 MB). I'm on DSL and it took me about 6 1.2 minutes to upload it. We're worth it! And you can delete it afterwards.


I didn't realize that the camera wasn't turning off between "takes" of the movie. I definitely didn't realize that I was being recorded. I'd already recorded it close to the 50 times by the time this was taken. I was not going to give up though. I just wanted to share this one that shows what I went through. Wish I had my second camera here because I'd like to have gotten a shot of the camera sitting under that elephant ear! if nothing else, Connie and I are both very resourceful!

I've had grandbabies here all night long last night, otherwise I would have done this earlier. You should have seen their faces when they saw Penelope. Priceless! Jennifer's too! The photo below isn't really clear, but you can see that Kaylee wants to play with her! I immediately realized that those sharp points on her dress could poke her eye out and scooped her up to keep her from getting hurt. We'll have to work on *that* before she's shipped.

I surely hope these work. We've already removed the other movies from the original site so those links won't work now.


Janet

This message was edited May 31, 2008 8:53 AM

Janet - That is really a cute video! Thanks for sharing! I really think that Penelope chasing the butterfly is an awesome piece of garden artwork! Very, very cute! Who are you shipping it to?

Thanks Becky,

We are so proud of Penelope. My grandbabies have been here all day and last night. I have Penelope hanging outside of my dining room window while we await some stuff to preserve her colors. The grandbabies kept on wanting to go outside play with it. I'd hold them up and tell them to gently pull on the butterfly. Every time she'd get to moving, little mouths and eyes would open wide in wonder.

It was fun watching the real butterflies fly close to check it out. I saw several GF's hanging out on the lantana today, along with lots of skippers.

The sculpture will be shipped to Balvenie, for him to hang in his moon gate, in his arbor.

Janet