Egg drills and specialized tools let artists turn real eggs into works of art.
Egg art has been around for thousands of years and has shown up in many cultures, from China to the Middle East to Europe. Eggs are often associated with spring festivals because they represent new life. Egg art includes painting, watercolor, waxing and even carving. Introduce egg art projects to students of all ages, adding levels of increasing sophistication as they grow older.
Preschool: Paper Eggs
Preschoolers can surprise you with their creative drawings.
Cut out several egg shapes from construction paper. Let your preschoolers color designs onto their eggs. You can also provide glue sticks and let them glue on decorative objects such as rickrack, ribbons, buttons or beads. You can also give them bird or animal stickers. Ask pupils to name some creatures that lay eggs.
Kindergarten: Plastic Egg Animals
Provide pupils with plastic eggs, googly eyes, construction paper, pipe cleaners, mini-pompoms, craft foam and glue sticks. Draw pictures on the chalkboard of animals that can be made using an oval shape. These can include a bunny, an owl, a groundhog, a baby chick or a pig. Show children make an animal with a plastic egg by cutting ears, noses and tails out of construction paper or using pompoms for facial features and chenille sticks for whiskers. Let them make their own animals.
Elementary School: Easter Egg Wreath
Give each pupil 14 plastic eggs. Let them decorate those eggs with paint or markers or by gluing on glitter, ribbons or pieces of tissue paper. Make sure that they can still open and shut the eggs. Have them set aside the eggs to dry. Give each of them two heavy-duty paper plates with fluted rims. Have them carefully cut the center of the plates out, leaving only the rims. They then need to glue the two sets of rims together. Then have them cut out diamond "leaves" from different shades of green construction paper. Glue the leaves onto the paper plate evenly around, leaving space between them for the eggs. At each of the blank spaces, take twist ties and wrap them tightly around the rim with the ends sticking up. Take the plastic eggs and close the halves around each tie.
Middle School: State Eggs
Teach your students blow out the center of eggs so that the shell remains intact. Show them pictures of painted eggs from many cultures. Then have them decorate their eggs to represent the state they were born in or the state they live in now. Encourage them to use different symbols, colors or even flags. You could also show them pictures of the state quarters to give them an idea of how something can be decorated to represent a geographic area.
High School: Ukrainian Eggs
Ukrainian eggs are elaborate works of art that take patience to create.
Introduce your students to Pysanky, the Ukrainian egg decorating process that uses hot wax to create elaborate designs. Have them boil eggs and then blow the centers out. Prepare the dyes in advance so they have time to cool. Have students use a pencil to create the design that they want on the egg. The pencil markings will not show up on the egg, so they needn't worry about mistakes. They can use rubber bands or paper stencils to help draw lines and shapes on the egg. Show each student use a kistka, which is the wax tool used for making designs. Have them apply wax using the kistka to all the areas they want to remain white. Once they have completed that step, they dip the egg into yellow dye and let it sit for about 15 minutes. After the egg has dried, they apply wax to all the areas they want to remain yellow. They repeat this process with colors in this order: yellow, gold, light green, light blue, turquoise, orange, brown, brick, pink, bright red, red, brown, brick, dark red, black, purple, royal blue and dark green. Dab the egg dry and let it sit for a few minutes. Light a candle. Hold the dried egg next to the flame. When the wax looks wet, wipe it off with a clean tissue. Repeat until all the wax has been removed, using a clean tissue each time. As the wax melts away, it will reveal the colors that were protected underneath.
