Friday Egg - Peacocks and Poppies!

Poppies and Peacocks!

Friday almost got away from me!  Lots of big things in the works, and I am starting to ramp up for the holidays.  One thing I can announce today is my participation in the East Austin Studio Tour.   This year it is two weekends, Saturday and Sunday, November 13th and 14th and Saturday and Sunday, November 20th and 21st.  The hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and I will open up my studio and be demonstrating most of each day.  We will have refreshments and beverages on offer.  We had a great time last year and  I am looking forward to doing it again.  I hope you all can come out and say hello and take a look at some of my new creations.  Speaking of which...

I made a beautiful blue Friday egg with orange poppies and peacocks.  I started with a white egg and measured out a figure-eight design to frame the poppies in the inner circles and create frames for the peacocks out of the outside of the circular shapes.  The orange is a little less intense than I would have liked, but I still like it with the cobalt blue background.

Peacock with blue tailfeathers

Traditional Rose or Star Pattern next to garland

Pretty orange poppy.  I always call the orange ones California poppies.  Is that right?

Scarlet flower detail

Peacock is ready for his close-up.

Red, green and blue garland

Red initials on the bottom of the egg.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg for Jennie

Jennie from Australia saw just a bit of this egg in a group shot I posted in my Flickr gallery and asked for a closer look, so here you go!

I am going to show two colorways of the same design because it is not only interesting to see how different colors affect the mood of the egg, but I also would usually not post the pink one because of various prototypical problems.

This is a truly hybrid egg using traditional elements arranged in a contemporary way with more modern color choices.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Brown Chicken Egg Etched and Dyed

Brown Chicken Egg Etched and Dyed

I have more wildflower eggs, but I want to shake things up! Today's egg is a brown chicken egg etched and dyed with a traditional design and non-traditional colors.

I started by writing wax on the brown eggshell, then etched to a lighter tan color with a straight vinegar bath. I dyed the egg with Temple Orange and waxed that layer, then dyed Peacock Blue and waxed, then washed the Peacock Blue down with a quick rinse of water to achieve the lighter blue color. Finally, I etched the shell down to the white layer of the eggshell for the background color.  The combination of opposite colors orange and blue makes for a lively design that is pretty but not boring.

This is also a good egg to illustrate the pores in an eggshell. In the close-ups you can see tiny blue dots in the white areas.  These are the pores of the eggshell that allow air to pass in and out of the egg.  During the dyeing process, they fill with dye and become more visible.  This is especially apparent in an ostrich egg which has large and deep pores that are highly visible.

After etching the last color, I found a crack that had been invisible before which runs from the white background area through the orange and blue triangle and into the cross pattern in the band:

Cracked!

Oh, well.  It's still pretty.  What do you think?

Isn't she pretty?

Side view - a slightly imperfect eggshell leaves a little bump in the white area

"

Initialed on the bottom

Close up of design detail

Pretty orange flower

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: More Wildflowers

Riffing on last week's wildflower idea, I did a mixed bouquet this week. I started with a black egg to draw the "bones" of the flowers: stems, petals and leaves. After washing back down to white, I used a large sized delrin kistka to apply wax on the yellow, orange, green, dark green and red layers. I was looking for a blobby and imprecise "not staying in the lines" feel which is hard to achieve with the fine points of my electric kistky. I think that paintings of wildflower scenes are better when they suggest rather than illustrate - too much detail and precision makes it look like an awkward family photo. After red, I washed the egg back down to white and then dipped in vinegar for a while for a light etch to pop the flowers a bit more from the background.

And just a quick reminder:  I have a basic Pysanky workshop scheduled for Saturday, October 16.  Contact me if you are interested - the basic details are on the upper right side of the blog.  It's coming up quickly!

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg

Happy Friday!  I can't believe the day is almost over.  It seems the more I do the more it seems like I should be doing, so by 5 o'clock, I am going a million miles an hour.  So to slow it down, I will post a wildflower egg to remind myself to breathe and look up every once in a while.   This is a stylized version of a bluebonnet patch.  The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas.  I periodically try to recreate them, and have had varied success.  The color of the real thing is a deep purple-blue that I can't yet achieve, but have high hopes with all the amazing new dye colors coming out now.  The architecture of the flower is difficult as well because it is easy to over-do, so that it looks like the flower is posing as a flower rather than hanging out with its buddies in a lovely field.  I think this worked out pretty well because I worked very loose and fast and didn't worry so much about the fiddly bits.

I hope you enjoy it!

Friday Egg!

A brown chicken egg etched and dyed with a pretty rosy pink color. Traditional design, contemporary colors.  I like how this one turned out, and am always a fan of the diagonal band.  It adds a lot of dynamic energy to the design.  I started with a brown egg, waxed all the brown lines, then etched it down to white so that I could get a really clear and bright pink.  Sometimes a brown egg will give the dye a brownish or yellowish cast, good for some things, but I was interested in bright this week.  Waxed the white lines next, then dipped in Rose Red and waxed, then dipped the final color of black.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg and Workshop!

Good Friday everyone! It is a beautiful hot sunny day outside, quite a change from Tropical storm Hermine. It rained so much that the billboards ads peeled right off the billboards and littered the ground underneath in great colorful sheets.

I am going to be offering a workshop in October, so please mark your calendars!

Basic Pysanky Workshop

Saturday, October 16th from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

This is a basic "how-to" class. We will make a simple design to
start with, so we can cover egg preparation, pencil marking and planning, using
the kistka, dye preparation and use, and how to get the wax off the egg so you
can see what you have done!

$60 per person plus $20 for materials, which consist of two blown eggs for you
to work on during class and a take-home kit that has everything you need to do
this at home - beeswax patty, kistka, six dyes, and simple design pages that
have traditional designs broken down with instructions.

Please let me know if you are interested in this class by e-mail. If you will need a kit, please sign up for the class by Monday, October 4th so that I have time to order kits.

Now, on to Friday Egg:

The Friday egg this week is a horizontal banded design. Haven't done one of these in a while because sometimes I feel like they can be boring. I think it is the mirrored repetition of design on top and bottom. Perhaps next time I can do different designs on each band and see whether that works better for me. I did one like that once that was almost like a carousel, with horses running around the top third. Put that one on my ever lengthening list of things to try. Every time I do an egg, it makes me think of two or three different things I want to try. Like a friendly and creative many-headed Hydra.

Happy Friday!