Sculptures Archives - Gibbs Graphics

Reindeer sculpture on top of a rock sign

Leavenworth Reindeer Farm

This was a fun project! The rock is sculpted with fiberglass reinforced concrete with an internal steel armature. The reindeer on top was fabricated the same way, with the addition of some sculpting epoxy for details, and then set on top of the rock.

Signs of the Times Magazine cover showing sign sculpture held in front of actual sculpture

Lizard G

This is a side project we made to be entered into the Signs of the Times 2020 sign competition at the International Sign Association sign expo in Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately the stressful rush to complete the project was in vain because coronavirus canceled the sign expo (but has since been rescheduled to August).

Leading up to the completion date we were pleasantly surprised to have been featured on the cover of Signs of the Times magazine as well as a featured article inside a prior edition! To us, that made it all worth it.

This year’s competition theme was “Less is More” and our creative interpretation of that, which we call “Lizard G”, depicts a cyborg lizard holding a giant G. Inside the G is our team/employees doing what we do best, making cool art! Our current company goal is to do “less” of the boring work and “more” of the custom 3D sign work.

Rusty and Amanda co-conceptualized the piece shortly after attending the 2019 ISA sign expo in Las Vegas where they were inspired by sign competition contestants including co-founders Dan Sawatzky and Jim Dawson.

sketches on a paper — More concept sketches

Computer designed shapes — Pieces and parts all designed in Adobe Illustrator

Decorative words — Amanda hand drew the filegree to be laser engraved

drawing of a lizard climbing on a large G — Lizard G concept sketch

In our piece you’ll find many of the different materials and techniques we like to work with including: cnc carved wood (black locust), laser engraved wood (cedar), steel, acrylic, sculpting epoxy, layered plywood and more.

Man grinding metal — Grinding the steel G

wood with carved detail and laser engraved word "Graphics" — CNC carved black locust wood and laser engraved cedar

close up detail of laser engraved wood — Laser engraved wood with satin clear coat

The G is made up of nine layers of plywood cut on our cnc router and glued together to make it 6.5″ thick. The G is 27″ tall. After hours of sanding it was ready to be primed and painted. But first we added some Coastal Enterprise’s TSF-45 to create some texture and interest.

CNC router cutting plywood — CNC routing the Gs

Person gluing plywood shapes together. — Gluing up the G

Lots of weight and clamps gluing boards together — Gluing the steel G to the plywood

Hand painting filigree — Hand painted filigree with translucent paint

The wood base is hollow and holds an electric motor attached to a shaft with bearings that connects to the bottom of the G with a welded plate. Internal LEDs illuminate the 1/2″ thick acrylic.

under side of mechanical device — The hollow base holds a motor and LEDs

base of sculpture made of steel, acrylic, and wood. — Base made of wood, steel, and acrylic

Man hand painting with silver paint — Painting the base

The cyborg lizard (a nod to our 7 year old son who loves lizards) has a welded interior structure and a hand sculpted 2-part sculpting epoxy outer skin (scales). It was fun tearing apart old machines to gather some interesting parts (wires, gears, computer chips) to add to the lizard’s cyborg body.

wood and metal sculpture — Beginning to take shape

Woman sculpting a lizard. — Amanda sculpting the lizard

One side of the G is layered with 1/2″ thick acrylic and 1/8″ thick steel inlaid into a plywood border. A small scene depicts a worker laying mortar on a base of mesh and plywood. The other side represents the workings of our Gibbs Graphics shop and depicts a scene of people constructing and decorating the G. Each figure was hand sculpted and then hand painted.

hand sculpting a figure — Putting details into a figure

miniture sculpture — Jason the mason at work

Sculpture of small figure troweling concrete. — Many layers make up this sign

Mininutre lady painting a mural — Ladies painting murals and hand painted sign

sculpture of lady on a ladder painting words — Hand painted signs

Sculpture of old man hanging a sign — Epoxy sculpted miniature sign worker

Sculpted office lady with stack of papers. — Less Filing, More ShopVox

All in all this pieces has close to 200 hours into it. It’s home will be in our office for customers to see. Enjoy the following photos and video. Thanks for looking!

Update 8/12/20:
We won! Holy smokes, what a surprise! Unfortunately the sign expo was canceled so we didn’t get to show it off in person, but through a virtual voting platform Signs of the Times Magazine tallied the votes from nation wide readers of their magazine and we took the win.

Burke Museum

In collaboration with the Tube Art Group, Gibbs Graphics produced and installed hundreds of wood plaques in the new Burke Museum in Seattle. We cnc carved the cherry wood then sanded and ripped and sanded some more. The final details included laser engraved lettering and then four coats of satin clear. The cherry plywood was also clear coated and biscuit jointed together to get a perfect tiled fit. The end result turned out fabulous despite the short turn around time allowance.

Carved Signs

Here a few carved signs we’ve done over the year. We started in the early 2000’s with a chisel and a hammer. It didn’t take long for us to invest in a hand held electric router ($15 at a garage sale). Fast forward 10 years and now we do most of our carved signs with a 3-axis CNC router. It’s fast, accurate, and we can actually be more creative with it.

First the signs are designed in Adobe Illustrator and then the 3D CAD modeling happens in Vectric Aspire. When the tools paths are created they are sent from the PC to the router and the magic begins.

Our two most common material to carve are Western Red Cedar and High Density Urethane (HDU). Cedar is great when the customer wants to leave some natural wood exposed (clear coated or transparent stain) and HDU is a better choice if the entire sign will be painted. HDU is more stable and less prone to expanding and contracting and checking.

Enjoy browsing the following images!

Sculptures and Themed Environments

Gibbs Graphics creates sculptures, store fronts, props, parade floats, exhibits and themed environments. Please see examples below of some of our recent projects.