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!

Friday Egg: A favorite color combination

The combination of purple, green and yellow just shouts "Spring!!!" My mother has an amazing iris bed in her garden that enchants me every spring when it teems with all shades of iris: purple, violet, lavender, blue, pale yellow. The mid-range green of the spiky leaves makes a perfect foil for all the bright colors. Last year's Easter dress for JoJo was a pastel yellow and the photos from Easter are among my favorites because the colors are so harmonious and at the same time stimulating.  It just makes me happy to see all these colors living together.

This egg has traditional geometrics but non-traditional colors.  I started with a turquoise blue egg, then worked through a lovely olive green, then violet and the last color is yellow.  I really like that the background color is yellow.  This is not a usual choice in pysanky eggs, but I like that it contributes to the "spring" feeling evoked by the rest of the colors.  Imagine this egg with a white background and it would have a completely different meaning or feeling, wouldn't it?

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Purple Rose

Friday Egg today is a traditional rose or star motif in purple and pink.  I was hoping that the colors would be a bit more vibrant, but the eggshell was just not picking up the colors the way I would like. I have been needing to refresh my dyes for a while and this shows why.  The colors lose vibrancy and get grainy looking and the coverage can be spotty and uneven.  I usually can make my dyes last for a very long time by adding a dash of white vinegar when they start to lose strength, but there comes a time when that just won't cut it anymore.  I have my distilled water, dyes and jars all ready to go, now I just need to find an extra hour in the day to mix them up.  Maybe Saturday night (don't be jealous of my glamorous life).

Friday Egg: Odd Combination

Today's egg is definitely an odd color combination. One of the interesting things about making Pysanky eggs is that you can never actually see what you are doing until you are all done.  So it is easy to get odd, unusual or just plain ugly color combinations.  The one that happens most for me is an egg that just doesn't work somehow.  The colors are too similar in value or not complementary and so the design doesn't come alive as it should.  I will let you look at the following egg and you can tell me if this egg was successful or not.  I simply cannot decide!

Friday Egg: Purely Traditional Rose

Friday Egg today is a traditional rose or star design executed on a goose egg.  I love the color combination of scarlet and dark red.  It doesn't sound like it would be very pretty, but it evokes a vintage elegance that makes me think of velvet couches and intricate Victorian knick-knacks.  And this design is so rewarding.  I love the variations I can get by altering each little row of squares or changing the color scheme.  When I melt the wax off on these designs I am always enchanted by the final result.

I started with a white egg and following the traditional order, waxed from white through yellow, peach, green, scarlet, dark red and black.  I think my favorite part of this egg is the "gift box" row.  It is the eighth row back from the center white star and is a peach square bisected by two red ribbons with small sprouts growing from four sides.  It is so blocky and big and balances with the more organic forms that are on the inner rows. If you are interested, this egg is listed on Etsy!

What a crazy week it has been!   After a couple of weeks of JoJo's sniffly nose and coughing, I was dumbfounded by her doctor's diagnosis of pneumonia!  I don't know why, but I always think of pneumonia in the same way I think of pleurisy, lumbago, or chilblains:  something that Jane Eyre would get. Silly, I know.  People get pneumonia all the time, but I just never expected to hear that diagnosis.  Also, both ears are infected.  Poor little JoJo was so sick, but the only way to tell was that she complained on Monday of being tired and then said "I want to go to bed." She never wants to go to bed, so I knew something was up.  And she kept talking about getting french fries stuck in her ears.  The doctor didn't mention finding any fried food of any kind in her ears, so that was a relief.  So we hide out on the couch watching movies and playing games until she starts to feel better.

Happy Friday Egg!

Friday Egg: Aqua, Cream and Brown Traditional Pysanky

Today's egg is an etched brown chicken egg.  I love the dark brown of the eggshell.  It really stands out against the cream of the undershell.  The aqua is such a pretty retro color, and the combination of brown and blue is one of my favorites.

I started with a brown egg and waxed all the lines that show brown in the finished egg.  After all the areas were waxed, I etched the egg in full-strength vinegar until I achieved a light cream color.  I dipped the egg in aqua and waxed those areas.  I think I would do a slightly lighter aqua next time, but it is so hard to tell color intensity when the brown is covered with wax.  After I waxed the aqua areas, I dipped the egg in vinegar again to remove all traces of color and get to the lightest cream color.

Enjoy your Friday Egg!

Check out this amazing chunk of ice!  We had a cup on the back porch that had a few inches of water in it and it froze last week.  It looks like one of those beautiful glass paperweights with the encased design.  Or a sea anemone under water.  It was just gorgeous and I still have it in my freezer.  I guess it will stay there until it sublimates.

No Friday Egg - Snow Day!

Sorry, but no Friday egg today as I had my daughter home with me all day playing in the snow!