Egg shell art

A friend of mine shared some "egg shell art" with me on facebook a week or two ago, and after my mom saw it, she wanted to try some of the techniques so I've been sent to google to find her a dremel & some instructions.  At first I was incredulous, but the more I think on it, the more I am liking the idea because even though it could be an epic fail, it could also be fun at the same time, so why not give it a try. :-D

There seem to be multiple ways of creating art using eggs, among the types are painting the shells using either brushes & paint, or wax, oils etc. resulting in paint displacement to form intricate designs & the other is carving them either with a dremel, a scalpel or some other type of precision tool.  Within those two types there are so many different examples it's just astonishing to me.

Here are some google images that came up when I searched for "egg shell art"....  The ones below are examples of the various methods.


I wonder how this form of art was done.  Is it paint?  Wax?  I have no idea but it's very pretty.







 




This is an example of an egg painted in the early 1940's.  I believe my great-grandma had one similar to this on her bookshelf.






The one being held over the light by an older man's hands seems to have been made by a gentleman in his late 70's early 80's, which is an impressive feat in and of itself.  His artistry is very beautiful and I've run across several examples of his work as I'm looking at all of these different kinds of egg shell art.  It's all quite interesting really...



As you can see, some of the eggs in the photo above are duck & some are chicken, some may even be swan, I'm not sure, but none-the-less all are very detailed, and designed by someone with a steady hand. 

 
As you can see, it's a brown egg shell, within a white egg shell... I honestly have no idea how they pulled that off.



This one was done using an emu egg, and the use of emu eggs seem to be a favorite, but they are quite striking if I do say so myself. 




Then you have the example below, where someone took the shell of the egg to use as a candle mold.  That was really using their common sense!!



And of course you can't forget this form of art using eggs....

Apparently, in this Ukrainian tradition, the designs on the egg shells are sketched in wax, then the eggs are dipped in various colors of dyes, to create this astounding display of beauty.





 My mind is officially blown away by all of the beautiful art that people have been able to come up with using something so everyday as an egg shell.  It makes me feel rather small and insignificant in comparison!