Man Room floor art project.

[Steve-O]

Well, the fishing in Utah (at least the kind I do) is winding down and the time for winter projects of reel rebuilding, rod work and other fun stuff is here.  My man room has an acid etched, yellow brownish stained bare concrete floor for ease of cleaning when I make big messes.  Since I had planned the concrete floor color to be an antique looking stain, I thought at some point I would draw something on there. So here's a peek at what goes on the floor. I'm sure most if not all of you are familiar with DaVinci's Vitruvian Man....



Vitruvian Man was a top choice but after my last Halibut trip in Alaska and at my wife's suggestion of making Vitruvius a little more modest for the kids and guests who may view it I decided "why not have him posing with a modestly positioned large fish?" thus providing both modesty and a pescatorial point of interest. and Voila! Vitruvian Angler is born.

This is a tiled layout of 11 X 17 sheets of paper to see how well the scale I chose would fit the floor. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio at slightly larger than life size fills the floor nicely while holding up a roughly 80 to 100 pound halibut with salmon swimming around him.



A second variation included rods and reels but the image got too busy and started to remind me of a pentagram so the rods went away.



And so the project is begun.



Steve-O

[alantani]

man, it's been 10 years since i've seen that much of my garage floor!

[Irish Jigger]

 I am not familiar with the guy but did it really take such a big halibut to protect his modesty?

[Alto Mare]

I am not familiar with the guy but did it really take such a big halibut to protect his modesty?

Jigger, the man was Italian.

[Steve-O]

AT-My garage has the usual junk - cars, bikes, kayaks, freezers, water barrels etc... and the nicest epoxy coated floor. My man room is a fairly new thing - a converted spare bedroom downstairs that we opted not to carpet but did the concrete acid etch stain and seal.

IJ- he was an Italian afterall....so a big fish was needed. lol!  Nah....not really but it looks a LOT better than the local stocked rainbow trout that wouldn't even fit a hot dog bun!


Sal- you nailed it as I was typing!!!!


Some progress shots....











Still a ways to go.

[Alto Mare]

Steve, that's starting to look awesome.... can't wait for the finished product .

[broadway]

Hey Steve,

    I like the new addition to the family... it's coming out great!  I do a little art as well, and was wondering what medium you're using to do the "V-man" on a concrete floor?
I've done some murals on walls but never the floor. Keep up the good work it's gonna look sick!
Dom

[redsetta]

Great work Steve-O - you're quite the Renaissance man... 

[Dominick]

Steve-O: I'm impressed.  If you really want to impress me further, do it on the ceiling lying on your back . Dominick

[Steve-O]

Thanks, guys....I do enjoy many aspects of life.....a big passion for all things fishing............but plenty of other interests, too.

Dom - I'm using an opaque brown paint marker by Elmer's. Has a rattle ball in it to agitate the paint and a spring loaded wicking tip. Two down and probably two to go.

It erases and cleans up with Acetone when I goof up.

My wife recomended the ceiling, too. I don't think I'm up for that.  Doing it on the floor on my knees on bare concrete is tough enough for me... . I have the carpet sample pad to kneel on when there's room not to smear any drying parts.


Renaissance man?....more like Eclectic Dude IMO.

The next project is a bit more amibtious. A reproduction of the Northwest Coast Native American carved and painted cedar panel artwork in the Ketchikan, Alaska airport terminal.



Mine will be at half scale though to fit the wall space next to my rod racks.

[Norcal Pescador]

My wife recomended the ceiling, too. I don't think I'm up for that.  Doing it on the floor on my knees on bare concrete is tough enough for me... . I have the carpet sample pad to kneel on when there's room not to smear any drying parts.

Steve-O,
Get off your knees, that's not good for them.
If you do the ceiling with a scaffold, take a pillow up with you so you can rest your eyes now and then.

[redsetta]

Renaissance man = polymath = ecclectic dude.
A man of many interests/talents.
Good luck with the carving Steve-O - looks like another great project.
All the best, Justin

[Dawn]

Love this project!  I wish I could understand more how you are doing it.  I try at being an artist in my spare time.
I'll be over 
Dawn

[Steve-O]

Hi Dawn - If it's not too far to drive....drop on by!

I'll try to explain the techniques I'm using in 500 words or less.  

I designed the project in Photoshop and measured my floor space to get the scale I wanted.

The layout near the top is 60 sheets of 11 X 17 paper placed on a 45 degree angle.

Then I tacked them together with the blue tape to get  fairly accurate square and cirlce dimensions which were done by tape measure and corner dots for the square and with a tiny Dremeled hole for the circle center... my son and I tied a string ( 80 dacron was closeby) around a push pin and the marker. He held the pin and I crawled around the floor with the marker and taught string. Of course, this was with the template folded out of the way after I got the corner dots poked through the paper and marked on the floor. That pretty much was the starting point for everything to come. My intent was to sort of "reverse engineer" the template onto the floor with the paint markers.

Then came the easy parts. You can see in the sequential pics the cut up sections of the art template. I traced the halibut in position, cut off the fins just kept going. I cut out the arms and legs, hair, face and so on. Same deal for the circling salmon. The bolding of the lines, details, shading and rest were free hand.


First time ever to attempt anything like it. I do pencil sketches to practice as did DaVinci and any other artists and then just go for it!

Right now I'm going back over nearly every line to  correct and bolden them plus draw the last two fish. It went much quicker than anticipated.

Hope that made sense and helps. If this did NOT answer your Q's  just fire away!
Good luck with your artistic endeavors!

[Dawn]

That gives me a pretty good idea, thanks.  Very creative.  I see you must be pretty good with photoshop, I don't even have it LOL  It's on the list of things to do/learn.
I am looking forward to seeing the finished project.

Dawn