On this brown egg I made swirls with gold polymer clay and after curing it, I etched some dots in the spaces between the clay using wax, a kistka and then soaking in vinegar, and then repeated the process with other areas on the egg. The doodles are black sharpie, pink and white acrylic paint. This was sort of a practice egg, to try out etching.
What mom do you know that would give this hand made brain to a daughter for christmas (LOL). Me, anatomist, biologist, science illustrator, nutty person, with a daughter just graduating from Wright State in behavioral sciences.
Real (emptied) chicken egg is the base of this egg head brain sculpture, covered with a very think layer of translucent polymer clay (to give it some stability). The folds in the brain were just made with a long rolled rope of translucent clay (which here certainly is not the highly convoluted brain of a very intelligent human) but is maybe like a mouse or rat. You can still see some relevant convolutions, like the motor and sensory convolutions areas. I made the temporal lobe a little too flat, but it is still identifiable. The fun part was of course cerebellum with its unique surface patterning, convolutions on a different scale.
Olfactory bulbs and nerves and optic nerves are disproportionately large here, just for easy identification. The egg brain can be removed from the stand and turned over where there is the optic chiasm, the there are mammillary bodies, and a pituitary (which would normally have been more hidden in the brain case, but I added here for fun).
Here is a link to read concerning a possible reason for convolutions, and a great video:
Lithuanian egg art, with wax, which is a little reminiscent to Pysanka, with the use of kista and dyes. This appears to be a technique where the dyed or natural egg has colored wax applied with a straight pin in the end of a pencil (convenient) and this is used to dip into melted wax (maybe a mix of bee’s wax for melting control and crayons for color) and applied in quick rhythmic strokes. Can’t wait to try this. I took a lot of searching to find the name…. everything was in a language I could not understand (LOL), which says something about my lack of linquistic prowess. See someone’s photo here which I have credited by linking the picture back to their site. They did a wonderful job.
The human creative spirit is overwhelmingly strong, found all over the world, vibrant, without overtones of politics or bigotry, just beauty and freedom. Astounding creativity and brain power. Visit this site. No questions here about the bounty of inspiration.
Raggedy ann and andy bread dough ornaments, bit the dust. I was really surprised (I don’t know why, I have had bread dough sculptures get moldy and soft and buggy before) when I unpacked christmas tree ornaments this year. Ha Ha. Poor raggedy ann and andy…. they took a severe dusting this year in the cedar closet. This is spookier than “walking dead”.
I had actually been a little sad looking at all the ornaments made with my children, and not a single one will be in town, nor any of my grandkids… So was just a bit sour, then found these, and that surely brightened the day. Ha ha ha.
I don’t know what the half life for your bread dough ornaments is, but these have been around for almost 40 years.
One of my first attempts at a polymer clay egg made with a cane. Canes were not really something I had tried before joining the 2016 Polymer Clay Challenge (online through facebook). I must say there are some great clay artists in that group. That inspired me to try something new. I learned a few things, 1) it is easier to smooth the clay before curing than sanding it smooth after curing, 2) sandpaper leaves scratches, and the show up. LOL. But it is a technique for eggs that I really love. So while this is not a great egg, it is a beginning. (lower image).
I feel better about the canes and eggs I make two years later, but still learning.
Squirrel, acorn cap, and fluorescent egg made with polymer clay and a real cockatiel egg under the yellow fluorescent polymer clay which covers it. Squirrel was made with left over polymer clay that has flower petals in it from previous objects and a little brown and black polymer clay. I cured this squirrel on his side so his tail would not fall off in the baking. And fyi, the acorn cap (which was from a Bur Oak (Burr Oak) or Mossycup Oak is really quite big (close to 2 inches) ) shrank big-time as it dried out. This was just a fun egg for fall.
This egg is also small, around 1 inch in height. The egg is mosaic’d with brown and white chicken egg shells. I remember having eggs which were about the same size as a cockatiel egg, but were brown with spots, and some shell can be seen here.
The egg shells (chicken egg dyed and broken into very small pieces) are used to create this tiny cockatiel egg mosaic. This egg is less than 1 inch in height. White glue used to put the egg shells on, and after drying, it was coated with urethane. The brown shells are from brown eggs, not dyed.
I had fun trying to learn how to get dyes to take on tiny cockatiel eggs. They actually have a pretty non-porous surface compared to other “washed” eggs. They are also pretty fragile and I broke several just trying to get the insides cleaned out.
This tiny one was made sometime in the 1980s i believe, and it is about an inch in height.
