Metalanimation Studio Inc. located in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada is pleased to announce the public unveiling of Kevin Stone’s 85 ft long mirror polished stainless steel Chinese “Imperial Water Dragon”. Kevin has been featured in local and international media several times over the last few years. In 2006  it was with his unveiling of “Power and Authority” the 31 ft. stainless steel eagle in the attacking pose. Then in 2007 with his second eagle sculpture “Power of Flight” which is the World’s Largest stainless steel sculpture with many fine details and an amazing 40 ft wingspan.

Kevin’s next challenging project was to  sculpt the Chinese Imperial Water Dragon. For almost 2 yrs, Keven has been working hard 7 days a week and has just completed the final touches on what he feels will be one of the greatest stainless steel sculptures to ever be unveiled anywhere in the world! As quoted “Kevin has produced exquisite world class sculpture with unsurpassed details and on a scale and size of incredible proportions, weighing 6000 lbs and standing 12 ft high, 14 ft wide, 35 ft long with 2 large coils in the body. Stretched out Kevin’s sculpture would be over 85 ft long!”

The Open House and public unveiling of the “Water Dragon” is on Saturday April 25th at 2pm at Metalanimation Studio Inc. 8501 Upper Prairie Road. Map available on contacts page at metalanimation.com.

…continue reading the post Imperial Water Dragon By Kevin Stone

I appreciate all kinds of arts in general because it takes a lot of dedication and hard work  from the artists to achieve the end result. Most of us like to be in our comfort zone by just clinging on to the safety of a regular job. Most of us when we see a fine piece of art, we often concluded that the artist must be really gifted and it should be easy for them. We come quickly to this conclusion because we are only seeing the end result, thus judging only the art work itself. What we don’t know is that the artists may have been learning and practicing for many years to get to that point. It also takes a lot of ups and downs to be an artist in this century. Then why don’t we see them give up? I guess they simply love what they do and it gives them a sense of personal accomplishment.

Another thing I like about the artists is that they love to share their work with others. Just ask and they will more than happy to talk about their work. This is exactly what I did with Ricardo Fernandes, a sculptor from Sao Paulo, Brazil. His Predator sculpture has attracted much of my attention. Before going into the details about the Predator, I would like to give a quick intro about Ricardo. He is known by his students and clients as Rick Fernandes. Rick is a freelance sculptor focusing on the creation of characters like the Predator below from the movie Predator featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger. At one point in his career he was assisting one of the great art teachers in Brazil, Alex Oliver. Rick has been working with sculptures and traditional drawings for seven years and recently as a professional for the last three years. He is currently teaching character creation at Meslies,  school of 3D cinema and animation. His  students must be  very proud to have such  a talented teacher! He consider himself as an autodidact (a self-taught person) being educated in a non-traditionally ways most of  the time. Being humble he doesn’t consider himself as a prowess. Rick enjoy studying  the work of many inspirational artists  like  Rick Baker, Stan Winston, Ray Harryhausen, Dick Smith, Alex Oliver, Miles Teves, Carlos Huante, Alan Lee, John Howe and many other artists.

…continue reading the post Predator Sculpture By Ricardo Fernandes

Between the Ferry Building and the end of Market Street in San Francisco sit an unusual fountain. It is locally known as the “Vaillancourt Fountain” but the sculptor, Armand Vaillancourt, named it “Québec libre!” on the night before the inauguration day of the fountain in 1971. Armand Vaillancourt is a French sculptor, painter and performance artist born on September 3, 1929 in the city of Black Lake, Quebec, Canada. “Québec libre!” which is in French and when translated to English mean “Free Quebec!”. Armand gave the sculpture such a name to show his support for the Quebec sovereignty movement and more largely, the support for the freedom of all people in Quebec.

This huge cubic fountain is 200 feet long, 140 feet wide and 36 feet high. It was closed for years for repair but was fully restored few years ago. Over the years the Vaillancourt Fountain received a number of names that was given by the public. They called it everything from “a giant monument to sanitary plumbing” to “a complete waste of money” to “a misrepresentation of art” to “a public fraud”.

The fountain had its most notorious moment in 1987: During a free outdoor concert by the band U2, lead singer Bono spray-painted “Rock and roll stops the traffic” on the fountain. His act was condemned by then mayor Dianne Feinstein and resulted in a citation for malicious mischief. Bono responded, “We’re the Batman and Robin of rock ‘n’ roll… I am an artist, and that was not an act of vandalism.” At a later concert, Bono invited Mr. Vaillancourt to spray-paint “Stop the madness!” onstage. Freedom of artistic expression aside, the act discouraged live concerts at the Embaradero for years afterward. :-)

…continue reading the post Embarcadero Center: The Vaillancourt Fountain

Early this month, I have heard on the news about a gigantic mechanical spider clinging to a derelict building in Liverpool, England. According to its performance artists at La Machine the story about the spider goes something like this…It appears to be female, around 13 metres tall and has been dubbed ‘La Princesse’ by the specialist researchers. The scientists believe the creature may be about to hibernate, and are attempting to prevent it falling into an inert state, as they are concerned with the potentially catastrophic results of the spider laying up to 1000 eggs. Scientists have therefore removed the spider from the building and taken it to a research base established at the ACC, at Albert Dock in Liverpool. The end.

La Princesse has been commissioned by the creative arts company and charitable trust Artichoke as one of the highlights at the 2008 Capital of Culture celebrations. One thing is for sure, it will attract thousands of visitors who just want to get a glimpse of the mechanical beast. The spider is made out of steel and poplar wood and will be operated by 12 people strapped to its frame. A attempt to wake La Princesses was done on Friday September 5th.  It was a success and the spider was moving around and spraying the public with water. Thousands of people have braved the wet weather to watch La Princesse being woken to an accompaniment of music from airborne musicians.

La Machine was also the designer of the mechanical elephant and the giant girl for Royal de Luxe’s performance of the The Sultan’s Elephant which brought the people of London in May 2006 to a standstill with amazement. Brilliant engineering!

…continue reading the post La Princesse: Gigantic Mechanical Spider

Like everyone else, I am also wondering if there is life on Mars. Recently with the Phoenix mission to explore the planet Mars, researchers have discovered that there’s ice on the red planet. This is fascinating news because where there is water, there is a good chance that there might be or might have been life on Mars.

But for now…there’s one Martian fighting machine on Earth in the town of Woking, located west of Surrey, England. His code name: The Woking Martian. Why they called it The Woking Martian? Simply because Woking was chosen as the location for the sculpture due to its historical connections. H. G. Wells, the author of the novel “The War of the Worlds” lived in the town. This best-known science fiction novel describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars which has influenced  many people and spawned many films, radio dramas, comic books and even a television series based on the story.

The Woking Martian sculpture was created by Michael Condron and unveiled in April 1998. Made with chrome plated stainless steel this sculpture is 7 meters tall with legs 17 centimeters in diameter. Next to the statue there’s a caption:

THE WOKING MARTIAN 1998 BY MICHEAL CONDRON. THIS SCULPTURE WAS UNVEILED BY THE MAYOR OF WOKING, CLLR. MRS IRENE MATTHEWS APRIL 1998.THIS SCULPTURE IS THE ARTIST’S INTERPRETATION OF A “WALKING ENGINE OF GLITTERING METAL”. IT CELEBRATES WOKING AS THE BIRTHPLACE OF MODERN SCIENCE-FICTION AND MARKS THE CENTENARY OF H.G.WELLS ‘FIRST EDITION OF’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. IN THIS PIONEERING NOVEL HUMANITY IS SAVED FROM AN OVERWHELMING MARTIAN INVASION BY EARTH’S SMALLEST CREATURES, BACTERIA.

…continue reading the post Art: The Woking Martian Statue