First Artwork of 2009

Oscar Wilde famously quipped “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

When an artist allows the creative process to trump the ho-hum banalities of everyday life, there can be some interesting results.

What if the act of making art could cast the mold for a year in the making?

What if the choice of a specific idea or image could influence the outcome of a brand new year?

What if the very act of creativity (at the outset of a New Year) could be a harbinger for a a creative, milestone year?

Or, to put it simply, what if the conscious choice to spend the first hours and days of a New Year engaged, really focused, on being creative casts a certain attitude on the remaining 364 days ahead?

That would be a good reason to step up to creativity!

Leaving nothing to chance, I decided to do whatever…exactly…I wanted to for the past couple of days.  Turns out I planted myself in front of my easel to produce a New Painting to match the New Year.

But not just any painting, not a random subject!

I decided to paint a picture of a dragon-fly resting on a leaf.

For me, this is symbolic of latent energy…the dragon-fly can spring off it’s temporary resting spot at any time and fly away into the sky!

Thought I would show you a few of the steps that I took in the painting process to ‘breathe life’ into my fist work of art this year:

The next (and last I think) step will be to tweak the high-lights on the rear gossamer wings…just a light touch of light…

It would not be too much of a stretch to equate this idea with the steady progress we have been making with the Skyaak project, especially since the invention of the innovative Skyaak DIY deuce, the down-loadable ring wing glider that you can grab, print, laminate, custom-decorate, cut out, build and FLY.

Skyaak DIY deuce Work-Out!

It’s pretty hard to imagine what a glider might look like gliding without seeing it airborne.  So I invited a couple of young Skyaak enthusiasts ( Charlie Clarke and his brother Mike) over this afternoon to work it out with their DIY deuce units and took the opportunity to put together a few short video clips. The video shown here is typical of the many throws and catches between us.

Charley also decided to build his own deuce today.  It took him about 15 minutes from the word go and he was ready to launch his freshly-minted unit on its maiden voyage!

If you want to experience the sensation of Skyaak ring-wing flight before your very eyes, you can right now.

Grab the Skyaak DIY ‘deuce’ model that you can print on regular 8.5″ x 11″ paper, dope with clear tape, customize, cut-out, build and fly for the one-time cost of $2.00. Just remember to make a copy of your download before you cut it out so you can go on to build a whole fleet if you want!

Skyaak Model 3 an Athletic Device

I’ve been working out with a guy named Evan Reiffersheid here who has proven to be an exceptionally great Skyaak enthusiast. I have been quizzing him quite extensively and here is what I am finding out. More accurately, he is simply confirming what I already know after all my experience with Skyaak.

Evan says, first of all, that he was easily able to figure out ALL BY HIMSELF five or six different throwing techniques for the Skyaak. This is thanks to the fact that he has a background in sports and is keenly interested in the skill set that enables him to excel with his Skyaak.

He went on to say that he loves Skyaak ( he rates it above Frisbee for excitement ) for many reasons. He claims that the Skyaak is valuable, stimulating and exciting to him because it functions as a TRAINER in these areas:

1) ambidextrous work-out

2) reflex builder

3) agility trainer

4) hand-to-eye coordination

5) muscle memory builder

This is an impressive list, and all of these areas get a solid, useful work-out whether you’re conscious of it or not. Evan also says that since he has independently developed five distinctly different throwing techniques, he finds the Skyaak to have long-lasting appeal. In fact, he says Skyaak has become one of his favorite leisure-time activities!

On a scale of 1-10, Evan rates Skyaak at a 8.5 or higher for overall excitement, interest, and training benefit.

Skyaak caught in mid-flight approx. air-speed 45 kph

You can grab a Skyaak DIY ‘deuce’ right now for just two bucks to experience the rush of ring-wing flight in a few easy steps!

Skyaak Ultra-Glow R and D Advance

Skyaak developer Dylan Cooke shows the latest Skyaak R&D advance, an LED light array that enables night-time play.

The request from the Feature Producer at Z Tele for a Skyaak ‘Ultra-Glow’ sent me scrambling into Saskatoon over the weekend to hook up with Dylan, who you will remember is one of the key developers of the LED accessory kit that we plug into the basic Skyaak Model 3 chassis to render it in brilliant light.  This of course takes the Model 3 to a whole new level of sophistication, making it glow for night-time play.

We have tried it out and found that the best way to throw and catch it successfully is simply to wear glow-in-the-dark bracelets so the guy throwing it has something to aim at. It’s pretty lame to just throw it wildly off into the dark!

You will see for yourself once you get into this that the object of Skyaak play is to make complete throws and catches. It’s not that great to chuck it into the dirt.  Much better to actually get it into your partner’s hands so he or she has a chance to feel the rush of the incoming energy transfer when it is snagged out of the air.

I just ran into a friend of mine who said that he bought a Model 3 two years ago and has put two summer’s worth of play into it. He reported that most of the time his Skyaak stays in the air.  That is, him and his two boys play with it lots and seldom throw it crazy. They make a point of taking a second to get focused and deliver it smartly into their recipient’s air-space. I’m sure it doesn’t always work out that way. There are times when you will crash it. Just try to be sensible and play in the grass so it has an optimum chance to survive the rough landing unscathed.

Remember, the Model 3 has been designed specifically to endure a lot of hard play, but you have to do your part like with any other flying toy to ensure it’s safety. For instance, in the R&D of the proprietary ‘ring-wing’ we burned through about seven different types of plastic until we arrived at the one with best flexibility, spring strength and shatter resistance. The object is to go hard, but try to fling it accurately enough so that your partner has a fair chance for completion of the pass. Think finesse.

I guess I’m getting a bit off-track here. I was  going to chat a bit about my time with Dylan putting together a couple of the Ultra-Glow accessory kits.

Dylan and I had a great time putting together the kits. I brought all of the components in that we needed to build the basic Model 3 chassis and Dylan whipped out his LED parts, tools and gadgets. Previous to this, I had some reservations about the viability of hand-building the Ultra-Glow accessory kits. It seemed that it was such a labor-intensive, complicated process that it would end up being cost-prohibitive. However, after we put our heads together this latest time we invented a few real time-saving process(es) that promise to streamline the production line. In fact, we are now confident that we now have the technology and techniques in place to make endless replications of the Ultra-Glow kit on demand.

It just goes to prove that perseverance really does pay off, big time. Dylan and I are both very comfortable in a production-line environment. It’s fun and satisfying to design jigs and templates that speed up and standardize production. For us, this organization of parts and process is one of the most rewarding parts of this whole learning curve.

Of course the MOST rewarding part is to get out of the lab to rock our Skyaak in the nearest park on a sunny day! And now we can go hard right into the night with the flick of a switch that cranks up the Ultra-Glow function! Woo-hoo! Are we having fun yet?