This is a smallish duck egg with yellow/orange squares and dotted turquoise lines interwoven between the squares. After I waxed over the squares and lines, I soaked the egg in vinegar for 20+ minutes. Vinegar reacts with the calcium carbonate in the eggshell and slowly dissolves the uncovered parts of the shell. Vinegar etching can be used to create a shadowing effect around the design, unless you accidentally walk away and leave the egg soaking for too long...
After etching the egg with vinegar, I scrubbed the egg ever so gently with a baby toothbrush to help remove the dissolved bits of eggshell. I recently switched to a baby toothbrush because my old scrub brush was a little too effective and removed some of the wax on previous eggs. After the scrubbing, the background was a bright white. I decided to dye the egg darker to better camouflage some of my wobbly wax lines (as small mistakes seem to really pop out on a white background). I then dyed the background black, which came out as gray. It's not always possible to get a deep rich color after vinegar etching, particularly with duck eggs.
For some reason, this egg made me think of peacock feathers. I'd like to try making a feather design in a future pysanky egg.
Monday, March 24, 2008
egg with squares and lines
This is a smallish duck egg with yellow/orange squares and dotted turquoise lines interwoven between the squares. After I waxed over the squares and lines, I soaked the egg in vinegar for 20+ minutes. Vinegar reacts with the calcium carbonate in the eggshell and slowly dissolves the uncovered parts of the shell. Vinegar etching can be used to create a shadowing effect around the design, unless you accidentally walk away and leave the egg soaking for too long...
After etching the egg with vinegar, I scrubbed the egg ever so gently with a baby toothbrush to help remove the dissolved bits of eggshell. I recently switched to a baby toothbrush because my old scrub brush was a little too effective and removed some of the wax on previous eggs. After the scrubbing, the background was a bright white. I decided to dye the egg darker to better camouflage some of my wobbly wax lines (as small mistakes seem to really pop out on a white background). I then dyed the background black, which came out as gray. It's not always possible to get a deep rich color after vinegar etching, particularly with duck eggs.
For some reason, this egg made me think of peacock feathers. I'd like to try making a feather design in a future pysanky egg.
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8 comments:
wow! beautiful. I don't see holes in your eggs. do they still have the innards? I made a pysanki egg a long time ago at a summer workshop and kept it around for a few years. one day it got knocked off its little stand and cracked open.. WHEW. how do you preserve yours?
yikes, i can imagine! apparently the traditional ukrainian way is to keep the eggs whole, but i wouldn't dare do that in my house... too many curious little fingers.
so yes, there are holes in all of the eggs. at first i was using chicken eggs from the grocery stores. i emptied them through a hole in the end after dying them. now i'm mostly using duck or goose eggs that are blown out by the people who sell them to me. i plug the hole with wax before dying the egg. if dye gets inside the eggshell, it can seep through the pores to the outside and wreck the design.
that is soooo funny, lanac... probably wasn't so funny at the time... that is cool that you have emptied them, you can't even tell. will you take a photo of your egg tree sometime? i'd love to see them displayed together.
i like this design a lot, i can see what you mean about the peacock feathers and am looking forward to seeing your future feather design...
Oooohhhh, I like this one too. I can see what you mean by peacock feathers. Can't wait to see that one. I have been curious about what you do with the egg contents. Good to know that one should plug the holes before dying. Aren't you afraid you might break the beautifully decorated egg while emptying its contents? Yes, I would love to see a photo of the egg tree!
whew, okay, well, that makes sense. Mine flopped over onto my parents' dresser. You can imagine they weren't too happy about that. You conceal the holes very well... Definitely take a pic of the egg tree. I would love to see the collection!
thanks for all your comments! i will photograph the egg tree as soon as i finish prepping the eggs for hanging. i still need to varnish them and attach the hangers. right now the egg tree has a bunch of other pysanky by my favorite egg artist, twistedpoppy. (you can see her work at etsy.com)
re: eggs breaking. yes, there is definitely a risk of breaking an egg during the blowing out process. i cracked a few chicken eggs when i tried to drill the hole in the end. the other thing is that you can't eat the contents of the egg once you've dyed it. the aniline dye is inedible and gets inside egg through the pores. it actually dyes the albumen. it's a little weird to see blue or green or red egg white coming out when you're blowing out the egg.
oh! you blow the insides out after you dye? how come not before?
well, the main reason to leave the contents inside the egg while decorating it is that it is much easier to dye a full egg. an intact egg will sink to the bottom of the dye jar, while an empty egg floats at the top of the dye.
with an empty egg, you have to push it forcefully down into the dye with a utensil and hold it there until you get the color you want. sometimes it takes just a few seconds, sometimes several minutes. it can be a pain to stand there and wait but at least it keeps me from walking away and forgetting about the egg in the dye jar. which i would totally do.
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