In the summer of 2010 I met our client from Trinidad for the first time. We talked about building a project there. Three years later, in the summer of 2013, I did the first concept drawings for Scallywag Bay in Trinidad. It was a half-acre adventure golf at that point but it quickly grew to be an entire theme park covering five times the amount of land. In the last two years it's been both fun and exciting to build all of those imagined ideas into features for the park and then load them into shipping containers and send them off. This coming week I'll travel down the Caribbean to check on the onsite progress. I'm looking forward to it!
The magic of paint
It is fun to design and route the name plaques for the workshops. Each one I design is unique. The real magic, however, happens when it gets to Becke. She looks at each plaque (which is a surprise) and then works out a paint scheme in her head. With some she got to a range of colours and techniques she has tried before and knows will look stunning. Sometimes the plaque sparks a new idea to try. Each time Becke has a clear vision of what the end result will be.
It starts with a coat of primer. We use a special water based primer that is lick like a heavy cream. This is brushed on with a small brush, purposely leaving brush strokes behind. Then comes the base color, always a fairly light hue and always three coats - all put on with a brush.
The glazes are next, custom selected and mixed for each project.
Once the glazes are on and dry Becke works her magic on the lettering,.. first painting and then skillfully dry brushing on some highlights and shadows. Pure magic every time!
All in a day's work
Today was the day that Spaz the dragon went to his new home. Jenessa and Angie volunteered to help with the delivery. They had never been on one of our deliveries previously but I knew they would enjoy it. Right out of the driveway we got lots of stares, waves, smiles, double takes and thumbs up. All along the journey people were taking pictures too. When we stopped for our coffee break at the donut shop an instant crowd appeared. It quickly became apparent that large purple dragons aren't an ordinary thing outside our shop walls. It is a very fun thing to be involved in creating magic on a daily basis. :)
