Friday Egg: Friday Fish Fry

A traditional fish design done in some non-traditional colors.  I started with a white egg, as tradition demands, then proceeded through gold, orange, turquoise and finished with the final color of purple.

A simple egg, but with such bright colors sometimes simple is best! 

Friday Egg: Etched Brown Egg

This is such an intricate little egg:  I'm secretly tickled to make such an intricate and delicate design with a brown egg because they are so rustic and utilitarian that the rose design is doubly stunning.

I started my first layer on the brown egg, then etched the shell down to white using regular white vinegar full strength. It usually takes about 20 minutes for the shell to etch down to cream.  After the etching bath I scrub it in running water with a baby toothbrush to clean it up and make sure all the dissolved shell is washed away.  I dipped it in Avocado dye and drew in some details with wax, then dipped in Peacock Blue for the next layer of detail.  Finally, I washed off as much of the blue dye as I could and then etched again to a creamy white.  I listed it on Etsy today, so go visit if you are interested:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/75338890/etched-and-dyed-brown-chicken-egg

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Colorful Exotic Bird

This week's egg is a downcast exotic bird of some kind sitting on a fern-like tree.  I like the repetition of horizontal elements: in the fern and in the eternity band encircling each bird. Everything is stretched out and elongated which gives a dynamic feel to the usually more static traditional elements. The colors are unusual for this one too: hot pink, red, green and a deep yellow on a brown background.  It worked out nicely I think!  I hope you like it!

Friday Egg: Gilding Again!

After seeing the beautiful gilding on the illuminated manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center and having a chat with a local sign painter and gilder (Gary Martin - check out his website and you will realize that you see something of his every time you get in your car in this town!), I realized that I never did follow up much with the gilding I was playing with last year.  I had just forgotten about it in the rush up to the holidays and then never really got back to it, but it is time I start playing again.  Only way to get better is to ruin a few eggs, right?

This is one of my favorite designs because it combines random design elements with the geometric precision of traditional pysanky design elements.  I started with a goose egg dyed with regular Ukrainian Gift Shop gold for the base color, then washed it back down to white, then went through red, turquoise, wisteria, light green, black and golden wheat (not necessarily in the order.)

After I melted the wax off, I picked out a few highlights with the gold leaf and then varnished.  At this point, what works best for me is tiny dots.  The details are so small that I can't quite get precise enough with the adhesive if I try to draw triangles or other more linear design elements. I need to look around and see what other tools and adhesives are available for gilding.

I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Pink Polka Dotted Elephant

A pink elephant with terra cotta polka dots comes to visit today!  This was a pretty simple design, but it to f.o.r.e.v.e.r to finish because this is a duck egg, and duck eggs are very particular about what colors they want to be dyed.  Duck eggs usually come with an oily sort of cuticle on the outside of the eggshell, which can be soaked off in a vinegar bath.  Once that is off, the egg can be treated much like a chicken egg but sometimes for no reason that I can discern it just stops taking on dye.  The only way to recharge to egg is to give it another long vinegar bath and let it dry for at least a day.  But I got it done!  

I started with a plain white duck egg, drew on the white design and then dyed the egg yellow several times but it never took, so I gave it a bath and a rest and tried again with Nutmeg, which ended up producing this lovely terra cotta color.  next was Lily Rose (a bright Barbie pink) and then Peacock Blue and finally Black.

If you are interested in purchasing this egg, click on this link.  If you are interested in looking at it, you can hang out here!

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Unplanned vacation

Sorry, but no Friday Egg today.  This week I worked on three commissioned eggs and so had no extra time to spend on a Friday Egg.  Also, I spent part of the day looking at some illuminated manuscripts like this:

and other amazing works of art at the Harry Ransom Center.  If you ever have the chance to visit this amazing treasure trove you should.  So full of amazing art, literature and objects associated with the artists and writers that you wouldn't be able to see it all in one lifetime.

I'm sorry there's no egg, but follow the link above and peruse their holdings for a while.  You are sure to find something amazing!

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Great Tragedy

I post a lot of my successful efforts and a few of my "maybe" eggs, but I have never posted a complete disaster.  I had one happen today so I thought I would take some photos so you could join me in my mourning over what would have been a lovely egg.

This egg cracked after I put it in the warm oven to melt the wax off to reveal the final design.  This happens sometimes when I do too much etching of the shell, either through dyeing or straight vinegar etching.  The shell simply gets too thin and the pressure of wiping melted wax off is enough to poke a hole right through.  And this is what happened to this lovely blue poppy egg.  I started with a brown chicken eggshell, etched it down to white, dyed and waxed through yellow, green, blue, jade green and then etched it again down to white.  I think there may have been one other etching with vinegar somewhere in the middle because of blotchiness on the eggshell.  Just too much eggshell removed and so this happened.  It would have been pretty.

One interesting thing to note is the inner shell. You can see how the pores of the eggshell allowed the blue dye inside: look for the blue polka dots. This porosity can be a problem when working with lots of layers because the dye that is inside the eggshell sometimes can be pushed out the same pores when the eggshell is warmed in your hand.  The only way I know how to prevent this is to let the eggshell dry out for at least a day before working on it again.