The Sunday before Easter we all got into the festive spirit
by painting some Easter eggs inspired by the beautiful ones in the collection.
Our session kicked off with a tour by Pitt Rivers staff
member Jozie Kettle. Here we looked at some intricate patterns which could
inspire our eggs, of course finishing at the beautiful hand painted Easter eggs
in the collection. Easter eggs have long been an important symbol of spring in
Eastern Europe, first as pagan symbols of fertility and new life, and then
later to represent Christian rebirth at Easter. The intricately decorated eggs
in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection come from a various places including
Poland, the Balkans and Czechoslovakia.
19.81.35.51-60 and
1965.3.208-213
When we returned to the room there were a selection of
different eggs to paint, wooden ones, spun cotton ones, and fresh eggs for
anyone wanting to try their hand at blowing out the eggs to leave just the
shells.
I also set up an ‘inspiration table’ allowing people to look
at examples of other painted eggs, and some suggestions I produced. Coming up
with the initial idea is always the difficult bit and so I hoped this would
help people on their way.
The traditional practice of blowing out fresh eggs to leave
just the shell is easier than you might expect, all you need is an egg, a
drawing pin, a cocktail stick and a straw. First use the drawing pins to make
two small holes, one at the bottom and one at the top of the egg. Next slide
the cocktail stick into one of the holes and wiggle it about until the yolk has
broken and the egg is starts to come out of the hole. Then cut a straw to about
an inch long and place this over the other hole, blow through the straw and et voilà, your egg shell should empty via the other
hole!
Check out some of the
finished products!
The final Craft Café was on Sunday and was making recycled paper jewellery and drinks coasters. Blog to follow soon!
