Friday Egg: Morning Trees

Friday Egg this week is a duck egg. I rarely work with duck eggs because they are notoriously fussy and take the dyes unevenly and sometimes not at all. They are truly the most challenging egg to work with because they have very definite ideas about how they should be treated and the order in which things should be done. Unless the dyes are in the same color family, like green to blue or orange to red, I generally dye and wash color off before I dye the next color. This just doesn't work with duck eggs. The color doesn't wash off or it does wash off but the next dye bath takes unevenly or there are weird blotches where the dye particles are really concentrated compared to the rest of the egg, all kinds of things go wrong. There is a waxy cuticle on the outside of the egg, unlike other eggs, and that must be treated gently so as not to scratch or mar the surface because that can cause the dye to take unevenly.

"So," you must be thinking, "Why on earth would you work with a finicky egg like that?" Because once finished successfully, there is a depth of color that you won't get with any other kind of egg. It is almost like the glaze on a ceramic bowl, with an almost dimensional quality that is hard to explain and perhaps hard to photograph. You can also see how by the time I got to purple the egg was tired of me and didn't want to play anymore! 

I think the dimensional look comes from the extra layer of the cuticle. Normally it is just eggshell with wax applied, but with a duck eggshell there is the shell, then the waxy cuticle onto which the wax is applied. I am thinking that this extra layer means the dye can seep under a bit more, creating a slightly blurred edge. If you look closely, you can see it in the darkest line of trees. This is a completely unfounded hypothesis but it's what I'm going with for the moment.

I started with a white duck egg, waxing all the white lines. Next I dipped in Golden Wheat and waxed the sun shape and yellow bars of each tree shape. Next was Key Lime and Light Green for one diagonal line of trees, then Emerald City and Mallard Green for the other diagonal line of trees. A final dip in Purple for the background/sky color. As always, I used Wax Art Supply kistky in Medium tip and Fine tip for the lines and for filling in larger areas, a delrin kistka heavy tip from the Ukrainian Gift Shop.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Swimming Pool

It's a warm day today: 85 degrees! This winter is pretty funny. Today's egg reminds me of the colors of a swimming pool: water, sky, clouds and grass. It is an old design that I haven't done in ages. Dots, dots, dots and circles! I started with white and just dotted circles, some concentric. Then a quick dip in Patina (one of my favorites!) and more dots. Another longer dip in Patina and then a last dip in Turquoise and then a final color of UGS Brown. 

Friday Egg: We Are All Beautiful

"We Are All Beautiful"

Installation by Katy David

Goose and Ostrich Eggshells, Aniline Dye, Varnish

at

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport

February 6 to May 13, 2014

In late December, I was contacted by the Austin airport (ABIA)to see if I might want to display some of my artwork there. There is a series of glass vitrines or kiosks that run along the concourse by the restaurants and gift shops. I jumped at the chance because it is a great way to get my art seen by thousands and thousands of people, more than would see it an a gallery or art show or anywhere else I can think of.

While I was excited to do it, I was also scared because this was going to be a big job. I knew that I didn't want to display the eggs as usual, on stands on a shelf. Displaying an egg that way doesn't do it any favors. I don't think that people really even see them: they just see a decorative egg on a stand, just like their Aunt Gladys used to have in her china cabinet. Instead, I want people to really look and SEE them, to see how the design wraps around the surface and changes color or form. I thought that an unexpected display would jump-start that more creative eye and ask people to actually look and see and experience them for what they really are.

I decided that hanging the eggs in a spiral design would work best and if that is good, then two spirals would be better! The final design in a double-helix with one large ostrich egg in the center. The eggs are hung in descending color relationships, so there is communication from one egg to the other, as if one is descending from its parent above. I like the suggestion of DNA with the double helix and the idea of the egg, the beginning of life. So from that springs the name of the piece "We Are All Beautiful".  It is located across from Gate 11 by the American Airlines security area and next to the Keep Austin Weird gift shop. Coincidence?

Aaaaand I don't have any great pictures of it. We installed it yesterday afternoon and ended up going over the allotted time by an hour, so didn't feel like I could impose and ask for another half hour to really get some quality photos. And I am not sure I could have done any better because the mix of shiny glass and reflective mirror was making even focusing difficult. 

Photo by Troy Campa 

Troy found some beautiful shadows on the floor of the display. 

Photo by Troy Campa

Photo by Troy Campa 

Photo by Troy Campa

Matt of ABIA is in the background helping. Thanks, Matt!

Photo by Troy Campa

I was relieved when we finally got it up and finalized. It was a stressful month ruminating and thinking about all the different options. Stressful in a good and challenging way, but it's nice to have it finished.

Troy Campa and Matt Coldwell, my amazing surgical assistants!

We did lose one goose egg to the construction process. Say goodbye to the Strawberry Swirl:

I am thinking of doing something interesting with my broken eggs. By now I have a few, so look for something in the future. Insides and outsides.

And finally, a big, great, huge, sizable, substantial, immense, enormous, colossal, massive, mammoth, vast, prodigious, tremendous, gigantic, giant, monumental, stupendous, gargantuan, elephantine, titanic, mountainous THANK YOU to Chris David, Troy Campa and Matt Coldwell for all of your help. I couldn't have done it without you!

Friday Egg: The Flapper

This egg reminds me of a cute little flapper with a heart-shaped face wearing one of those amazing beaded headdresses like this silent film actress Lili Damita. What glamour!

It is a chicken eggshell waxed, etched in vinegar and then dyed with Patina, one of my favorite dyes right now.

Friday Egg: Icy Twilight

Happy Friday! In honor of the Snow Day we are having, a lovely winter egg in two shades of Emu Blue. I return to this basic design all the time because I enjoy creating it and changing the colors, thickness of line, amount of detail. It gets me "warmed up" when I am working on other more challenging eggs. I really like the Emu Blue on this one, like an icy twilight. It makes a nice deep navy blue on a white eggshell, which I have never really been able to find with any other dye color.

Have a great (cold and snowy) weekend!

Friday Egg: Flowstone

Another original design is on offer today. I have been thinking of earth and landscape forms for the past few months and then I started thinking of what is under the earth. This egg is reminiscent of the stalactite forms found in caves, most especially those that look like the gills under a mushroom cap like this formation in Carlsbad Caverns:

http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/archives/compress/2007/608/05.htm

These formations are called travertine flowstone speleothems. According to Wikimedia,  "Flowstone is a form of speleothem that forms where calcium-carbonate-rich water trickles down the walls of a cavern. Over time travertine accumulates in unusual drapery and ripple-shaped patterns, reflecting the constantly changing pattern of surface water flow and mineral accumulation." 

I think they are fantastic, not only because they are beautiful to look at, but because they are a combination of fragile and strong, static and changing. It's stone flowing like water, growing over millennia to create new and even more fanciful forms.

I started with Key Lime, then used Lilac for the next layer, and the gills were done in three shades of Carrot.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Kissing Fish

This goose egg decided what it was going to be all on its own! I had planned on doing a floral motif with one central large bloom in each open space with vines trailing to each side with smaller blooms in the narrow ends of the chevron shape between the bands. But as you can see, that did not happen! As I was sketching out the flower design, I saw that the sawtooth shapes left a negative space that just had to be filled with a fish shape. And naturally, since those shapes were on the top and bottom of the chevron, there had to be two fish kissing.

I was really pleased when I melted the wax off the egg and saw the amazing colors! One of my favorite color combinations is pink and orange, and I think that combination worked perfectly with the fish!

The colors used (in order!) are Golden Wheat, Neon Green, Key Lime, Carrot, Lily Rose, Rhodamine, Turquoise and Emu Blue.

Happy Friday!