yard art

anyone have any cool ideas for cheap to no cost yard art?

"Cool" is a pretty personal thing. I'd feel a bit exposed putting my ideas out into the ether. What sort of things do you like? For example, I have a beach nearby which is an endless source of cool free stuff.
I like worn, rumpty looking stuff and I'm quite happy fiddling with a few bits of driftwood, an old rope and some enormous mussel shells.
That aesthetic's not everyone's thing though and it comes back to personal taste.

Quite true about personal taste.

I am playing with some permie folk in cleaning out a former community garden.
All kinds of strange things are found! One was a contraption made of wood with wide leather things attached to it.
I showed it to one person and said, 'Looks like a medieval torture device'.

He looked at it and said, "cool". Now it is hanging near the entrance.
I must admit, it is somewhat growing on me. 

As for yard art, I love garage sales. When I go to garage sales, I am usually looking for something for my garden and find things I consider "cool",

ellen

Leila Rich wrote:
"Cool" is a pretty personal thing. I'd feel a bit exposed putting my ideas out into the ether. What sort of things do you like? For example, I have a beach nearby which is an endless source of cool free stuff.
I like worn, rumpty looking stuff and I'm quite happy fiddling with a few bits of driftwood, an old rope and some enormous mussel shells.
That aesthetic's not everyone's thing though and it comes back to personal taste.

Lots of ideas here:  http://inhabitat.com/art/

Personally I love the art of Andrew Goldsworthy:  http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html

Damn Paul, Jasmin's  place is absolutely Beautiful!
i honestly think thats one of the prettiest flower gardens i've seen, and the artwork all around is fantastic'

loved hearing the full song track too, now i know where the typical backtrack music came from.
great song

here is a little trellis like piece i had a local artist make for me, i gave him a few pictures of Kokopelli  and he came up with his own interpretation , he also made me a sun piece,not sure if i have a pic of that.

its about 3' tall made from square metal stock.

I really appreciate the suggestions, photos and videos. taking some of the advice 

fulvous wrote:
anyone have any cool ideas for cheap to no cost yard art?

At one point my next door neighbor/friend and I were into making "yard art" out of old computers stacked in piles, welded together, painted,etc.
That lasted for a few years, but the yard art ended up being used mostly as target practice for friends with big guns.
It started looking more tacky than cool really...


One of my favorite things I built was a giant set of wind chimes made out of pieces of an old iron wood stove. Dang thing was heavy as hell and it hung on thick rope from a huge branch in an old black walnut. It was so heavy that the only time it would sound is when a big storm was coming, but then you could hear it all up and down the valley. My storm warning system!

Lately I have been making things out of concrete and bottles. I have a round tower of bottles and concrete by my driveway that is lit at night.

To me, things made out of artificial materials like plastics are not suitable for yard art- generally look cheesy and the sun ruins it within a few years.

I wish I could see a photo of your tower, Crispy.    I'm planning to build a round well house of mortared rocks and glass bottles. 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
I wish I could see a photo of your tower, Crispy.    I'm planning to build a round well house of mortared rocks and glass bottles. 

Well, I call it a tower, but its only about 2 feet tall at this point. I'm not quite finished with it. One problem that I did not foresee was the possibility of someone backing into it.
Then a sherriff's deputy was pulling out of my driveway a while back and ran right into it. Scratched the car, didnt hurt my "tower" at all. Still, at only two feet tall I imagine it weighs around 200 pounds or more- pretty hard to move! (Be sure you've really thought it out before going ahead- a concrete structure is going to be around a LONG time. )

Needed a new gate from the garden to the side yard and found a cheap sun face at a thrift store.  Incorporated it into the gate.

Beautiful gate! 

I like the trellis, Matthew. I used to have a cast iron one about that size with the top like a sunburst. It made me happy just looking at it.

Robert Ray, your gate is stunning. Thank you both for sharing.

I was in a neighborhood of Seattle called Ballard about a month ago, and there was this container garden down a side-street that had a wonderful urban chic to it. Maybe not "art" per se, but what do you think? (Try to imagine these a lot more vibrant--my crappy cell phone washed out the color a bit.)

Just found these cool little critters. I am going to see if I can get my dad on making me some of these to be little "gaurdians" of my food forest. My dad got into the hobby of welding random shit together to make different critters. I'll snap some pics next time I am over there. He has a Stork like creature with rakes as wings and old garden shears for the mouth, and a few other random things.

Brad Davies wrote: the hobby of welding random shit together to make different critters.

Lmfao , that is an artform begging for it's own title... how about Jelding - junk-welding. performed by a jelder. heard it here first..

that lil dude is awesome! looks like a propane tank and dunno what the limbs are?


edit:,. had to see if jelding was already out there, not really.

but head this warning , do not confuse (or combine!) jelding with "Jelqing" .in fact, dont even google it,trust me people~