Traditional Easter Egg Decoration

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

http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID115491.html

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!

Creative Canvas Bags

The second Craft Café took place last Sunday with visitors coming to design their own canvas bags. We welcomed some repeat customers and some new faces as well.

We started with a short tour led by Andy, Head of Education at the Pitt Rivers Museum. This concentrated on bags, and patterns within the collection, which could inspire our decoration. We visited a variety of objects including some ceramics from America.  The example below from the collection was made by the Zuni people of New Mexico. It is painted with images of cloud, rain, lightning, and road-runners, the bird native to New Mexico and Arizona. It was a lively tour and very much enjoyed by all.

1886.54.3

http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID6822.html © Pitt Rivers Museum   

When we returned to the room everyone was given a canvas bag and there was a table laid out with fabric paints, fabric pens, beads and ribbon. People were free to decorate the bags as they liked, though I showed an example I had made using masking tape to create geometric patterns.

Making a hand painted bag using masking tape is easy. You can think of a design beforehand, but random patterns work well too. You just need to lay down strips of the masking paper wherever you want the bag to remain white. Then paint the un-taped areas, a trick is to use a brush with quite stiff bristles as this creates a sharper edge (something I learnt from experience!) When the paint is dry simply peel the masking tape off.

There were some very bright and beautiful bags created. Look at the colours on these!

It was amazing to see the care and thought being put into the craft. Corie, pictured below, made a bag for her part Galician part Cypriot mother-in-law. It featured aspects of the Galecian landscape including a valley, hill and trees. Symbols representative of her mother-in-law's heritage, an Olive tree representing Cyprus and the symbolic shell of the patron saint Santiago of Galicia. Along with depictions of the London and New York City skylines where she has lived. Wow!

Another bag made by Tugba was directly influenced by the Pitt Rivers objects on our tour. Look at the picture of it she tweeted below!

We’re looking forward to the next session this Sunday where we will be painting Easter eggs. But until then… keep crafting!

Book for our other Craft Café sessions here.