Friday Egg

Friday Egg this week is an example of one of my "window" eggs.  Etched pretty heavily on a goose egg for some texture as well as color.  I started with Pysanky Showcase Golden Brown for the outline color, then took it back down to white, through all the colors to black, then took it back down to white for the final color.  I hope you enjoy it.

Best Kistka

I have used several brands of electric kistka over the years and my personal opinion is that the best one is from Wax Art Supply.

This brand was designed by a mechanical engineer and it really shows!  The tips provide a consistent wax line that rarely skips or clogs up.  They have a great selection of tip sizes from extra heavy to triple extra fine. The tips I have used the most are the fine, double extra fine, medium and heavy.  It has tremendously helped my artwork as I can now get all those lovely and amazing details that are in my head onto the egg.  In addition to the different tip sizes, you can also buy either a fixed tip or an interchangeable tip that has a small screw that holds the tip tight.  As a testament to how great these tools are, I used my grandmother's Wax Art Supply interchangeable tip kistka that she got sometime in the 80's (it could even have been the 70's!) until it finally died last year in 2009 - that's at least 20 years.

Please take a look at them if you are in the market for an electric kistka.  I know you will be happy.

Friday Egg

I am trying to fit this in during JoJo's naptime. She is having a rough week and home sick today with a fever and fussiness.  Perhaps teething.

To business:  I have a more contemporary Friday Egg today.  Stylized poppies on a pink background.  I am feeling the need to create more Springtime themed eggs for my upcoming trunk show and Easter shows.  I like the raspberry fluff shade of pink.

Here's a close up.  I don't think you can see, but the surface was etched a bit to add another dimension.

You can tell just a bit by the thin red outline on the shapes.  That is actually the vertical "wall" made by etching in vinegar.  Since dark red was my last color before I rinsed it down to make the raspberry fluff color, the etched egg picked up that color and it makes an interesting effect, I think.

Thanks for looking!

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!

Friday Egg

Ha! You didn't think I would get to this today but I did! I am posting an egg I completed a few weeks ago. This is basically a traditional egg with poppy motif, but the geometry is a bit more contemporary. There are four windows, and the poppy design is a bit different in each one. Take a look:

It is as yet unvarnished, but I think it will look pretty once the shiny layer goes on. It does a lot to bring out the colors - the red and green are going to pop!

I have it here on a new stand I ordered.  I'm not sure whether I like it or not.  I think that it becomes less about the art and more about the contraption:

What do you think?

Nursery Rhyme Egg

And for a trip down memory lane...

A few years ago I was inspired to try something a little different.  A friend was expecting a baby girl and I made an egg to commemorate the occasion.  I thought it would be fun to do a double sided egg based on the "There was a little girl" nursery, with one side featuring the "good" girl on one side...

and the "horrid" girl on the other:

I circled the egg with the nursery rhyme:

I think it turned out pretty well, though of course there are several things I would do differently next time.

I would love to hear what inspired your latest project.

Magnetic Paper Dolls *Now With Lamination!

After seeing onepearlbutton's blog post, I just had to try to make these magnetic paper dolls for JoJo.  The Betsy McCall paper dolls are adorable for this project and there is a huge selection of cute retro outfits. My favorite is the leopard print coat: so stylish! 


Of course, my project didn't go quite as smoothly as it should have.  My printable magnets were not really printable (at least on my printer), so I ended up printing the dolls on label paper, cutting them out and then sticking the labels onto the magnet sheet.  My big brainstorm was to then "laminate" them with clear Contact paper which turned out to be a really smart idea:  the first thing JoJo did was take a blue marker to the doll's faces!  I was able to wipe off the marker easily.  Whew.  


Here's all the magnets up on the fridge:

My favorite is the leopard print coat:  so stylish!

Here's two of them dressed up in my favorite outfits:

I have two more sheets of the "printable" magnets (in quotes because so NOT printable) that I think I will use for accessories like hats, umbrellas, cats, cars and bulldozers.