Frog Watch

The blueprint "Frog Watch" is dedicated to the "Unfrogettable", a Wristmon by Konstantin Chaykin created in collaboration with Louis Erard and built on an archetypal image from Russian folklore. The idea came to Chaykin while he was reading bedtime stories about the Frog Princess to his children: in the heroine he saw a structural likeness to the philosophy of the Wristmon. Beneath the character's unprepossessing appearance lies her true nature, hidden from a superficial glance, just as the complexity of the movement in Chaykin's watches is always concealed behind its outer form. The artist reinterprets this semantics of the hidden and the revealed through the means of Horological Art.

Work on the blueprint begins with precise geometric calculation: the proportions of the future watch are set out with a compass, and then the outlines of the case, the strap and the details of the dial are marked in with a simple pencil. Watercolour is applied over the pencil drawing in circular strokes, building optical depth in the green dial and strap. The highlights added afterwards create an effect of reflected light that visually recalls the lacquered armour of the Frog. Two round yellow indicators with dark pupils give the dial the features of a frog's face.

The fairy-tale plot can be read in the details of the dial as well. The pink-red band in its lower part recalls the sash that tsarevich Ivan wore, and the hour hand is shaped like the arrow the hero shot at random in search of his betrothed.