Potential Strava art pictures “pop” from the map when you highlight main thoroughfares and long connecting streets. In images 2 and 3, the general shape for Stephen Lund’s Strava giraffe clearly emerge.

Yesterday’s giraffe was a topic of much discussion over pre-ride coffee with my cycling club this morning.

One fella said, “What – you just decided you wanted to draw a giraffe and then you sat down with a map and figured out the route?”

In some cases, that’s my approach: conceive the idea and then manufacture the route. But in the giraffe’s case, it was a matter more of discovery than creation.

In an earlier post about my Strava art process, I showed you the Photoshop map I use to plan my pictures (1). A few weeks ago I created a new layer with all of the city’s main roads highlighted (2)…and potential pictures started popping off the page!

The sequence of images here shows the giraffe’s emergence. Once I’d highlighted Victoria’s main thoroughfares, the general shape of the giraffe (3) was easy to see. From there, it was just a matter of fleshing out the details (4).

I didn’t really create her. She was there all along.

“Ahh,” said another of my fellow cyclists, “you’re just like Michelangelo. The map is your block of marble, and you just see what it wants to be.”

Um, yeah – exactly like Michelangelo.

Following is the anecdote he was alluding to.

The only legitimate comparison to Michelangelo, I think, is that many people have been accusing me of being ‘touched in the head’ as well…

For many months, Michelangelo would arrive at his studio, stare all day at an 18-foot block of marble, and then go home for his supper. Thinking him mad, those who knew him asked, “What are you doing?” To which the Master would reply, “Sto lavorando” – I’m working. Three years later, that block of marble was the Statue of David.