Friday Egg: Prickly Pear Cactus

Happy Friday! I've been working on a series that I will talk about at another time, but out of it has come a design that I am really happy with and will be pursuing further in the future I'm sure. This is a fun design to look at and a fun design to create, with all the bubbly cactus ears and spines traveling up the egg. The greens are different values of Key Lime and the pink of the cactus flowers is Rhodamine.

I was so tired last night that I forgot that the egg was still in dye, so the usually tiny imperfections where I didn't cover evenly and perfectly with wax are magnified after an overnight in the dye. Pysanky dyes are made with vinegar, which eats at the eggshell and gives it some "tooth" into which the dye particles can settle. The long bath in vinegar last night means that the egg was etched a lot more than normal. After too long of an etch, the vinegar begins to undercut the areas that are dyed. You can see that in some of the color change areas in the cactus ears, where the black dots are eating into the white lines. Not the end of the world with this sort of free-form and cartoonish design, but an interesting example of over-etching.

Have a great weekend!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

There's been a scarcity of posts lately and I am busily trying to remedy that, but right now I don't have any good eggs that I want to document or publicize. I do have a lot of ideas in progress though so please stay tuned.

I was also delayed by a couple of trips and the death of my beloved cat Blanca.

Adios, friend. It was lovely to have you around.

On a lighter note, I was lucky enough to tag along to the Aspen Food and Wine Festival with my husband. I've never been to Aspen before and was simply enchanted with it. The weather was unbelievably perfect, with blue skies and temperatures in the 70's. I was in heaven, and not very happy to come back to Austin and the Texas summer heat.  I can't wait to go back!

Clowning Around

Symmetrical plant that I want to try to recreate in an egg design.

My first ever real-life beaver dam!

The prettiest litte cemetery on the Ute Trail 

Mountains surrounding the Maroon Bells area. I loved the white stripe.

Another mountain by Maroon Bells

Maroon Bells. Amazing. Looks like a shot with a fisheye lens, but that's just what it looks like!

A hillside on the bus ride to Maroon Bells

I got to meet Jacques Pépin! So thrilled!

Happy Friday! And back to work on eggs for me.

Viernes Huevo: Cabeza Encogada

Buenos dias, amigos. A Dia de los Muertos egg for you today. I started with black outlines on a goose eggshell, then washed the egg back down to white with Ivory soap and a vinegar bath to etch it just a bit. then dyed it with the brightest and most contrasting colors because I wanted it to really pop!

¡Feliz Viernes!

Friday Egg: Allium Pops

A contemporary design again this week. I call this one "Allium Pops" because they look like lollipop flowers. I like the purple and reds together on this against the creamy yellow background. 

I am lucky enough to be taking a mosaic class from Dianne Sonnenberg. Check out her amazing mirrored mosaic eggs. I would love to try that sometime! I have some ideas percolating in my brain for eggs and series of eggs, but give me another week or so: I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with mosaics!

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Catherine Wheel

I feel like COLOR today! This design is based on a wagon wheel design from Japanese Chiyogami paper. I have done this design before in grays, black and white (see it here) but it has been a while. I recently sold the emu egg version I did of this egg...

and felt like revisiting the design. Using bright colors changes the meaning and feeling of the wagon wheel design, making it festive and fun, spinning and twirling. It reminded me of the mental image I got when I was reading a book as a child and they talked about a Catherine Wheel. 

So I present to you my version of a Catherine Wheel! Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: 1980

Got your OP corduroy board shorts? How about your jacket with a rainbow stripe?  Get it together because we are going on a journey to 1980, a time of rainbows, seagulls and Roller Boogie!

This was an egg that came up when I was working on some round geometric rainbow designs, similar to the Rainbow Brite egg I posted a while back.  I started with gold and worked my way through orange, green, red, blue and purple and then etched the eggshell back to white with vinegar. The black is a bit dull or faded looking to me, but I think it will revive a bit once I put varnish on. I try to take the photos without varnish so I don't get eye-burning hotspots to distract from the design. Perhaps once I varnish I will do a quick update photo shoot. I thought it would be interesting to work on more organic silhouettes using the same idea of repeated lines creating an interesting pattern. Definitely not a traditional design this week. I thought it would be interesting to work on more organic silhouettes using the same idea of repeated lines creating an interesting pattern. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions of an egg you would like to see done in this style. Unicorns?

Happy Friday! And happy skating.

Friday Egg: Pink Spider Chrysanthemum

Friday Egg today is a Pink Spider Chrysanthemum design. The colors on this are non-traditional, though the scarf design is based on the traditional sakvy (saddlebags) design. If you are paying attention, you might notice that it is the same basic design as my "Like Holding Hands" egg I showed a few weeks ago - this is a fun design for me! One of my favorite parts of this design is the elongated diamond shapes on the scarf. It just adds a more contemporary feel to the normally traditional design. I love the Barbie pink (Lily Rose from Pysanky Showcase) and Golden Wheat against the brown background. And for added interest, the texture of the goose egg really shows through on the background layer. All in all a fun egg to make and a fun egg to look at!

Happy Friday!