I’m going to put one hundred luminescent duck sculptures in a visible location somewhere in Washington, D.C. While working on this street art project, I’ll document my progress online. You can see all the ducks created so far by going here.
I’ve made it to 50 ducks! This is some sort of accomplishment and not at all a glass-half-empty-oh-no-I-still-have-50-left-to-make moment.
When I first started making ducks, I thought I’d stop at 50. Darn it to heck, if I’d stuck with that, I’d be done. However, part of what makes this project noteworthy, I think, is its volume. I don’t know if 50 ducks would have been a truly outrageous number of packing tape ducks (though I suppose you could argue that any number would have made the project ridiculous).
Anyway, without too much overanalyzing, I’m marching on.
This milestone duck post is dedicated to my daughter, Brett. Others have helped me with my street art projects, but Brett has been my most consistent and enthusiastic accomplice. Brett took part in various sea blob invasions and was on-site with me when I installed the King Kong traffic box. She contributed to several of the ducks in this post and has been saving materials she thinks would be particularly beautiful when made into a duck. Rock on, Brett. Do your thing.
Brett loaned me some of her school work for duck 44. The assignment, from the 100th day of school (100, that elusive number), was to draw herself now and to draw herself at age 100. On one side of the duck, you’ll see a smiling girl with a triangle-shaped body. On the other side, a smiling girl with a triangle-shaped body and a cane. Everything about it is amazing.
I made duck 45 out of green and pink tissue paper. The glue made the colors bleed, an effect I like.
Duck 46 is gold spray paint covered with Brett’s Sharpie drawings. You can’t tell from the picture, but she drew several cats along the duck’s back.
Someone gave me a big box of sharpies which, I found, work pretty well on the outside of packing tape. I used them for ducks 47 and 48, and I think they’ll look good when illuminated.
Brett saved a lot of wax and translucent packaging from her cheese snacks to collect the materials needed for duck 49. When I was in elementary school, kids used to ball up the wax from these cheeses, then throw the wax balls up so they would stick to the ceiling. I mention this now because it shows kids have been finding inventive uses for cheese wax for at least thirty years.
Last but not least, milestone duck 50! This one is about me learning how to use the cheap acrylic paint set I bought on Amazon. I managed to make clouds. That’s good enough for today, and good enough for duck 50.
