Friday Egg: California Poppy

I love California poppies.  My mom has them in her spring garden and they are such an eye-catching neon orange that they are impossible to resist.  The Friday Egg this week is a goose egg sized tribute.  I did a little bit with gilding which I don't think adds too much to the egg, but you can tell me what you think.

Friday Egg: Dancing Scarlet Poppies

I love poppies.  I love playing with the shapes of the petals, their dancing stems, seed pods and leaves.  Everything about them is fun for me to draw.  I really like the loosely dancing poppy stems paired with the traditional stars at the bottom part of the egg.  A nice pairing of formal and informal, static and moving.

If you are interested in this egg, take a look at it on Etsy!  

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Eight Poppies, Eight Ferns

A new design this week!  I was just doodling along with my usual divisions and came up with this design of skinny triangles.  I thought it was perfect for single poppies, sort of like a series of bud vases.  And then the ferns fit right in since they are so geometric.  I will be doing more of this design in the future, so keep an eye out!

I started with a white egg for the basic division lines.  I used a medium kistka for the triangles divisions and the star design at top and bottom.  Next was Golden Wheat, a rich deep yellow that I really love right now.  Again, I used a medium kistka to make the division lines on the star at top and bottom.  The poppies were done with the XX fine point kistka, and the fern leaves were done with a fine kistka.  The next color was green, then orange, scarlet and finally black.

I hope you enjoy it!

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.

Friday Egg: Traditional Scarlet Poppy

I'm busily getting ready for the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, which starts next Wednesday.  I have to be ready to load in by Monday, so I have only three days left to get everything sorted both for the booth.

So the Friday Egg today is short on words and long on pictures, but I think that's what you like anyway, right?

This poppy egg was started on a white goose egg and went through the traditional steps of light to dark.  I really like the orange tips on the petals and scarlet inner petals.  One mistake that turned out interesting was the black spots on the petals - that was me being in a hurry and not covering all the areas with wax so that the final dye bath of black got on those parts of the flower. I think it adds some interest and texture, so will have to figure out a way to incorporate that idea in future eggs.

The poppy is a popular motif in traditional pysanky.  It is the national flower of the Ukraine. I personally enjoy it because it is fun to draw.  The flowers has a definite structure, but within that structure I can make a lot of different choices.  The petals can be ruffled or straight-edged.  I can do one solid color or choose different colors like in this egg.  I can do a straight-on view of a flat poppy or a side view. I also like playing with buds and seed pods.

Hope you enjoy it!

I will be taking the rest of the year off unless I get a wild hair and post another egg.  Most likely I will be too busy with the Armadillo to get back to this until the new year

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

A valentine egg for you today! Pretty scarlet poppy on a white background on a goose egg, approximately 4 1/2 inches tall.