Katy Bradshaw David

Visual Artist

[exiledintejas]

The ‘real’ official city flag for #Austin #Texas

[kbdart]

WIP Blue allium

[kbdart]

Embroidery project. I love color.

[kbdart]

I can't remember the last time I decided on a yellow background, but I definitely need to do it more! I like how bright it is. For this goose egg, I dyed the egg black first and waxed all the dark lines. I washed the egg back to white and then dyed the bright colors. I tend to wash they dye off after each dye bath on a light colored egg like this. Happy Friday!

[kbdart]

Spring has arrived very early this year. The iris started coming up a couple of weeks ago, when normally they come up at the end of March. So in honor of the early arrival, I present this little treasure of a chicken egg in purple and green, reminiscent of a garden of irises. Do you see the rakes in the middle and the garden fencing? I started with a brown chicken egg and waxed all the areas that I wanted to remain that brown color. After that step, I gave the egg a very long vinegar bath to get to a lighter inner layer of eggshell. With a lighter color, the dyes can be fully bright and vibrant. I dipped the egg in yellow and waxed, then light green and waxed. I washed the dye from the egg to get a paler shade of green and waxed that layer. Then I dipped in a medium blue, waxed, and finished up with the final color of this gorgeous purple. Happy Friday.

[kbdart]

A little grimy, a touch oversaturated, kinetic, maybe even frenetic. Reminds me of a big city. 

I made this one at the same time I made Senescence. I was exploring overworking an eggshell, just to see what would happen. The colors on this one are vivid, but slightly muddied by overwork. The edges are not as crisp, allowing for some seepage and even overlap of colors. Some of the wax came off during etching or washing back the color which adds another point of interest. 

Happy Friday!

[did-you-know]

There’s a company that specializes in designing high-security secret passageways and hidden doors, some of which can only be opened by playing the right piano keys or precisely arranging pieces on a chessboard. Source Source 2

[busterkurii]

I want to turn my house into a Resident Evil game

[w-r-o-u-g-h-t]

me, trying desperately to get into my bathroom: fuck, shit, where’d i put the Eagle Crest

[kbdart]

I wish I could have a secret room like this. So cool.

[kbdart]

A stylized floral pattern, reminiscent of a pineapple flower adorns this lovely little chicken egg. The back ground color is PUSA Patina, just a quick dip to make a lovely azure blue to contrast and complement the hot pink and magenta of the pineapple flower. The green ferns are along to keep it company. This piece found a home in December, so I hope that the person who owns is enjoying a little tropical moment of this chilly January day. Happy Friday!

[kbdart]

Deterioration with age. Ravaged. Worn. Plagued with problems, even some warts. Things fall apart. But the symmetry is dynamic and the colors are vivid. Age has made everything a little more interesting. I abused this egg with etching, dyeing and re-dyeing, rinsing off and washing and starting again. The eggshell was not happy and not cooperating with what I wanted. I was frustrated with it and set it aside for a few weeks. Once I was able to not be annoyed with the egg I decided to play with the problems and see how much I could amplify and showcase the issues that are usually frustrating to make them the whole point of the design. I ended up really loving what happened in the end. Happy Friday!

[kbdart]

A highly stylized clematis vine, climbing and twisting and reaching upward to the sky. I wrote out the process and divided it into steps so you could understand more clearly the process of layering that I go through to produce one of these pieces. Step 1: I started waxing on a brown chicken egg, as you can see from the outlines of the vine and flowers. Step 2: After waxing, I etched the egg in vinegar to remove the brown outer layer and expose the lighter inner layer. Step 3: I then dipped the egg in UGS Light Blue and waxed the outer blue line of the leaf. Step 4: Next I dipped the egg in PUSA Patina and waxed the second slightly more green line on the inner portion of the leaf. Step 5: I dipped again in PUSA Patina for a longer time than I normally would in order to get the dark green inner color of the leaves. Step 6: In order to ensure a bright and clear color, I washed the dye off with soap and water. Step 7: I etched the surface again in vinegar to make the egg ready for more dyeing. Step 8: Now it was time for UGS Purple. I waxed the outer line of the petal. Step 9: Then I rinsed the egg under running water to get just some of the dye off the eggshell, leaving enough so I could achieve a lighter purple color and waxed that inner line of the flower petal. Step 10: Finally, I washed the egg back down to the light creamy shell color and allowed the egg to rest for a few days. I like to give the egg time to dry out from all the processing it has been through. The heat of the oven can turn the moisture of all the dyeing and waxing that is in the eggshell to steam and cause seepage from the pores that shows as random white blobs. Sometimes I like that effect but sometimes I want to have a bit more control over the final design. If you look closely in the lightest part of the purple petals you can see dots of the blue-green color. Similar to what happens in the oven, the warmth of my hand as I hold and work on the egg heats the air inside the eggshell which forces the dye back out through the pores. I like that this eggshell added it's own signature to the piece. Happy Friday!

[kbdart]

An etched goose egg, the design revealed in relief rather than color. Simple and elegant. Happy Friday!

[kbdart]

This week I am showing a brown chicken eggshell etched and then dyed in these delicious orange and apricot colors.  This one found a new home at the East Austin Studio Tour last month, so this is a goodbye post! Happy Friday and Happy Holidays!

[kbdart]

Another golden egg: This time it is an etched goose egg done in a ferny leaf pattern and then covered in sheets of 23.5K gold. So I called it Gold Leaf! Too obvious? Probably, but I could think of no other name once I thought of that one. I like that small bits of the white eggshell underneath peak out from between the leaves, the same way the sun might filter through a shady grove of trees. As with any of my works, this piece is available through Camiba Art Gallery. Happy Friday!

[historicaltimes]

A Japanese American unfurled this banner over his business the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, 1942. Photographed just prior to the owners internment by Dorothea Lange.

via reddit

[kbdart]

An ostrich egg, pure white and unaltered, broken open to reveal an inner life of golden light. A representation of the love a parent gives a child. The highest and deepest love to the child, as represented by the golden inner lining of the egg that protected and nurtured the child. But such love is not without consequence. The egg has to break for the child to grow. The dual states of parenthood, of love and pain. This work can be seen at Gallery 701 at the Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive, in their show "Naissance" beginning November 18th and running until February 20, 2017. 

[ofools]

not gonna say it again!!!!

a BOG is a wetland that is acidic

a FEN is a wetland that is alkaline

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

FINALLY someone said it!!!!!!!

[kbdart]

Today's egg is an idea I have been working with this year. I have become fascinated with the interior of the eggshell and what the pores of the eggshell do with the dyes as I work my design on the outside. Usually, this beautiful scattering of colors is only seen after an egg breaks and at that point most people aren't in the mood to see how gorgeous it is inside. I want to bring this beautiful "conversation" between my work and the reaction of the eggshell to the fore without the disaster preceding the discovery, so I chose a goose egg that I was not particularly fond of and sawed about a quarter of the shell away to reveal the internal scene. And because I wanted this work to be about what was happening inside the eggshell, I decided to paint the exterior a matte black to hide my own half of the interaction and accentuate the beauty of what the eggshell had to say. In one of the photos, I took a close-up of the exterior and you can still see some of the etched outlines of my design in the black paint. One difficulty I had in photographing the work is that the dots of color are so beautifully diffuse that it is impossible to perfectly capture the image because it looks out of focus.