Friday Egg: Cosmos on Blue

Today's egg is a lovely blueish-purple color with my variation of the traditional sakvy design.  Scarves of traditional diamonds are encircled by white and yellow cosmos.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: California Poppy

I love California poppies.  My mom has them in her spring garden and they are such an eye-catching neon orange that they are impossible to resist.  The Friday Egg this week is a goose egg sized tribute.  I did a little bit with gilding which I don't think adds too much to the egg, but you can tell me what you think.

Friday Egg: Giant Graphic Flower Attack!

Today's egg is based on the idea of a spirograph. Do you remember those from childhood?  I really loved making designs with my spirograph.  I would love to play with one right now, as a matter of fact.  It might help me come up with some cool designs.  But I managed to come up with this design on my own. It is a very bright, very graphic flower on all four sides, top and bottom of the egg.

I love the orange in this flower!  Orange is the most difficult color because for some reason the dyes are very short-lived.  If I mix up a batch of Orange, Carrot or Pumpkin it will be bright and vibrant for maybe two weeks, but will sadly lose its potency.  I mixed up some new dyes and have been using all my oranges while I can take advantage of them!

The color combination of pink and orange is a favorite of mine.  It seems to evoke a feeling of fun, youth, joy and optimism.

I hope you enjoy your fun, youthful, joyous and optimistic Friday Egg!

Scavenged Arrangement

I realized on my morning walk with the dog that there are some really lovely spring weeds growing. So instead of scooping poop with my plastic bag, I toted home some nameless weeds and combined them with some flowers and foliage from our yard et, VOILA!  Instant arrangement.

Check out this rose bush!  It is totally overgrown and at least 12 feet tall with the most perfectly scarlet roses. We don't water or fertilize it which is probably why it is so happy.  We just leave it alone to do what it will.

Here's an unknown type of tree/shrub that is blooming in our backyard that I also used in the arrangement:

Here's the finished arrangement:

Anyone know what this green weed is?:

I think it turned out amazingly well, considering I spent absolutely nothing on it.

Happy spring everyone!

Friday Egg

It is a beautiful day today.  The sun is shining and the sky is blue and I am inside my dark little studio working on eggs!  But here is a lovely little iris egg in honor of spring.  I started with a white egg, as you can see from the outlines.  I like the mix of traditional patterns on the bottom and and the free-form flowers on top.

Here's the entire thing, finished with one coat of varnish (I will do a couple more in the next few days).  I will start including a scale object (penny) so you can easily see the size of the egg:

Here are a few more detail shots of the egg:

Happy Friday, everyone!

Folk Art Chandelier

I found an amazing paper chandelier at the website for the Polish Art Center. Just take a look at the marvelousness (is that a word?) that is the chandelier.  They are called Pajaki, which literally means "spiders of straw."  It looks like a God's Eye base decorated with colorful cut paper flowers. Don't you agree that on a rainy day this would be a cheerful to look at?

I believe that this one is my favorite:

From what they say on the website, this is yet another folk art tradition that is dying out.

I would love to hear about other folk art traditions that you know of that other people might never have heard of.  Links to photos would be great!