Where do your ideas come from?

I often am asked where the images I use come from. There are plenty of sites selling images for ranch signs, nature scenes, holidays, etc. If you have searched for metal art pieces you may have seen some of roping cowboys, majestic deer, families gathered around a table over and over again. While some of them are quite artistic, they are hardly custom, when numerous metal crafters are using the same design files.

I try to make all of my work custom indeed by creating my own images. I do occasionally use files sent to me by artists, architects and other graphic designers at their request, but much of my work comes from napkin sketches and conversational requests of my customers. My favorite request came from a customer, who said, “You know what I want. Go crazy.” Yee Haw! Some of the work I did for her is on this site. She was happy with it. Guess I wasn’t crazy enough.

Lucky me. On one of my “research expeditions” I came upon a Rocky Mountain sheep pair at about 12.000 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park. That is Longs Peak in the background. I love my work. The next step is making other people love it also.

When I was asked to create a railing incorporating many of the species of wildlife near a customer’s home, I just had to include our State Animal, the Rocky Mountain Sheep or Bighorn. This picture was one of my inspirations. Using other pictures from the same encounter, I found silhouettes of his head and body I liked. Next I found outlines of his legs, that showed movement.

Exporting these images into my CAD program, I combine the images and modify the outline until I have the final silhouette for this Bighorn ram. I do similar work to create two ewes. Using other pictures and ideas of the krummholz, stunted trees, found at timberline, I place the group in a scene I can envision at timberline. I scale the scene to fit in the rail opening for the customers porch, export the CAD file in a format my CNC plasma cutting table can read, cut the scene out of plate steel, cut and weld the railing frame together, weld the finished scene into the frame, prepare the piece for its powder coat finish and after it is powder coated I take it to the porch to be installed with other seven or so panels, that make up the entire railing and stair railing. Presto!