Man Walks All Day to Create Spectacular Snow Patterns

[Midpack]

It's cold here today and it's very hard (for me) to "enjoy" winter, but I try to anyway.

The patterns are interesting themselves, but the (large) scale makes them ingenious/incredible IMO. Note the 2 (tiny) people in the foreground of the second pic.

2 examples below (chosen to show scale), 9 more at Man Walks All Day to Create Spectacular Snow Patterns - My Modern Metropolis

 

[NW-Bound]

This man has the patience of a saint! Or was it Sisyphus?

Excerpt from linked article:

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie, France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art. Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields!...

How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather. Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations.

If ER means I have to do something like this, I would rather go back to my work!

 

[audreyh1]

This stuff really is spectacular. Wow! So cool that someone is dedicated to creating these.

 

[Meadbh]

This man has the patience of a saint! Or was it Sisyphus?

Excerpt from linked article:



If ER means I have to do something like this, I would rather go back to my work!

You don't have to, and hopefully neither does he. The text says he is getting exercise in a way that is not painful. Presumably he enjoys snowshoeing and patterns. Like many French people, he may be an aesthete, making something beautiful just because he can. If you travel around the French countryside, you will see trees precisely pruned, everything arranged just so, ready for a scenic photograph.

 

[azphx1972]

Amazing...

 

[pb4uski]

Very cool

 

[ERD50]

Neat. I wonder how you do that so close up, seems you would need a bird's eye view to get it right.

-ERD50

 

[Lazarus]

Snow circles.

 

[NW-Bound]

You don't have to, and hopefully neither does he. The text says he is getting exercise in a way that is not painful. Presumably he enjoys snowshoeing and patterns. Like many French people, he may be an aesthete, making something beautiful just because he can. If you travel around the French countryside, you will see trees precisely pruned, everything arranged just so, ready for a scenic photograph.

Yes, I read the article. This man loves what he's doing, and I admire him for his strong will, and physical stamina too. Pruning a tree into a pretty shape, surely I can see myself doing that (but I would have to learn how to do that first, as I do not even know how to prune my apricot tree to keep its size in check). Spending 8 to 9 hours a day in the snow and to risk losing your work to a fresh snow fall overnight, now just think about that drives me to drink!

I do not remember reading about any remuneration, so he might be doing that just for the love of art. And at the risk of being called a philistine, I would say I wanted to be paid beaucoup bucks for doing this hard work. Good thing I was an engineer and not an artist.

 

[Walt34]

That is a "Wow!" display of patience and precision.

It would make a good post in the "What did you do today?" thread. It'd be tough to top that one.

 

[deserat]

That is really cool - I'm amazed at how precise it is at that scale. I wonder if he measures it somehow. Reminds me of looking at some very large full-length oil art portraits...the artist knew that his audience would be looking up at it, so changed the perspective lengths to accommodate that. This man does not get to see the higher from-the-air perspective of his creations and yet senses they are 'correct.' Awesome. Like crop circles...

 

[FIREd]

That is really cool - I'm amazed at how precise it is at that scale. I wonder if he measures it somehow. Reminds me of looking at some very large full-length oil art portraits...the artist knew that his audience would be looking up at it, so changed the perspective lengths to accommodate that. This man does not get to see the higher from-the-air perspective of his creations and yet senses they are 'correct.' Awesome. Like crop circles...

According to this Huffington Post article:

The artist uses an orienteering compass and measuring tape to get his bearings and "lay out" the design, then uses a clothes line and a central anchor to achieve curves and circles, according to a Facebook page Beck devotes to his snow art.

Snow Art: Simon Beck Makes Geometric, Crop Circle-Like Patterns On Frozen Lake (PHOTOS)