Dragon eggs, and an art swap.

Time is getting away from me. It is racing away at an alarmingly fast pace and it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I have been in touch with the trustees of the Chauncy Vale wildlife sanctuary and they are still very keen for me to make great piles of dragon eggs and leave them all about the place. I have asked a couple of other ceramic artists if they would like to display their work at Chauncy Vale next year and luckily for me they have agreed. Yay.

I have to write up a brief proposal before the committee meets later on this month, so that they have something on paper and then it is really time to get serious about making.

My initial idea was to slipcast the dragon eggs but I had a bit of trouble making the model. One clay model looked like a giant pod thing, another looked like a tic tac. I was finding it quite hard to get the shape that I wanted and the fact that it is absolute chaos in the studio at the moment wasn’t doing my head space any favours. I thought about casting a football and then modifying the mould to make it more egg like but it was just all too hard.

In the end I asked David for a condom and we filled that with plaster and then I gently shaped the wet plaster until I had an egg shape that I was happy with.

I am in two minds whether to leave the imperfections in the model or not. I am not sure. I think it adds character to the piece but whether I want fifty eggs with the identical marks is another matter totally.

Once I had overcome the initial hurdle of making a prototype egg everything started to fall into place. I dug out a bag of really gutsy, grogged clay and made two hand built eggs.

I made these by making two pinch pots and then joining them together and shaping them into an egg shape. I textured the eggs by rolling a rock over them and I have also pressed a piece of bracken fern into one egg as I am experimenting with trying to get a fossilized look. These two took about forty minutes each to make and I don’t think I will be able to make more than two or three at a time as my wrist was really aching afterwards. Now that I have made the first clay eggs the ideas are racing through my head and I feel like I have a bit of  forward momentum now.

On twitter yesterday I saw an interesting tweet talking about an Art Swap.So I clicked over for a bit of a look and the idea has captured my imagination. Here is the opening blurb on the web page.

Artists:

On Twitter, I am promoting an art swap as a way for artists to share with and collect from their peers.

As artists, we often appreciate other artists’ work, but do not actively collect.

This is a way for us to give to others and collect beautiful art at the same time.

This is a way to inspire others… to build our community worldwide… and encourage others to create.

I joined up immediately and here is the link to ART SWAP if any artists out there are interested.

So that is where I am at with the Dragon Eggs at the moment and as I was wandering around outside yesterday the ducks were following me hoping for a snack. This one was even smiling for the camera.