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  • My first 3D artwork: the ‘rainbow crane’!

    August 20, 2023

    It took many walks on our local beaches to find just the right pieces of driftwood, but here he is, mister Rainbow Crane*. My very first piece of 3D artwork. A fun project that has kept me busy for quite some time. Isn’t he handsome?

    He is one of the ornaments on our otherwise boring garden fence and it perks the place up with a splash of summer colours. Even though Labour Day is approaching and everyone tells me that means summer is over, I am in denial. I trust that we will have many more sunny days. The odd rainy day is also welcome, the plants love that. But I love the heat. And feel a lot better with high temperatures than low…

    The idea for this 3D artwork came when I picked up the first piece of driftwood that, to me, clearly looked like a bird’s head. More precisely: a stretched out neck with a bird’s head at the end.

    So then started my explicit search for a piece of wood that could be the body. Once a fitting piece for the body was found, I fused the pieces with glue and dowels, also from driftwood. Then I had to think about the wings/wing. How was I going to do that? At first I imagined using an old broom. But that did not really look as I expected. So then I started collecting many straight short and longer branches that I envisioned were going to be the feathers of the wing. Also driftwood. But how to put them together?

    It came to me when I saw a piece of metal wire lying around. I had an idea! I drilled small holes in all separate wing ‘feathers’ and used the wire to put them together. Enforced it with some glue that would dry transparant and voila, there was my wing.

    The broom I initially wanted to use as a wing is now part of the entourage of mr Rainbow Crane…

    The colours were a no-brainer. I wanted something bright and uplifting. And then it took me another while to figure out how to hang the bird from a wall or fence. I remembered that I picked up some rough planks from the side of the road, probably a year ago. A lick of paint in my favourite teal transformed it into a nice background sky.

    Yesterday I worked all day to bring everything together and hang it at our fence.

    I will probably take mr Rainbow Crane inside when the season starts to change, but for now I am enjoying the cheerful fence that now borders our garden!

    The piece on the left is a reproduction on canvas of one of my paintings. It will be interesting to see how well it will do outside, exposed to weather.

    * There is no such thing as a rainbow crane. I just made that up…

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About this website

This website is about art, travel, cats and lots of other stuff. From today’s day and from yonder years…
Our lives are like a suitcase filled with stories and experiences. My husband and I currently live in beautiful Canada, in the large province of Ontario. We are originally from The Netherlands and Belgium, and after years of traveling we have found a home on the North American continent. For us, a home would not be a home without cats; many of our feline friends have traveled the world with us. A special section of this website is dedicated to many of them. But there are also stories and visuals about my adventures all over the globe. Do let us know what you think – we love reading your feedback!