Preliminary design work

When I originally planned out The Butterfly Project, I had intended to merely dress up the columns under the museum at the Calusa Nature Center. Now that I have looked at the site a bit harder and discovered that I have a much larger canvas (a large stucco wall), I have started to look at the design in a new way.

The wall that the bulk of the butterflies will be attached to is sandwiched between the center's Butterfly Aviary and their American Alligator exhibit. Somehow it just seemed right to work an alligator into the design.

Here's a rudimentary sketch of what I plan to do...

A happy alligator will be attached to the base of the large wall and the most colorful butterflies will be forming a large swarm above his head.

Maybe this will help put things in perspective...(but maybe not!)

I will continue the swarm around the wall (on the left) and on the columns towards the Butterfly Aviary exhibit.

A lot can happen during the installation so these plans aren't set in stone but I'm going in this direction. I still have to create the alligator (that will be approximately 31 inches long and a foot high). He'll probably be the last thing to go in but I have a cardboard cut out that will stand in for him while I create the swarm.

Here's a photo of my sketch of the "happy gator" on the mesh...