Egg-A-Day Challenge

It's so important for us to create. I have done many monthly challenges in the past to assist me in this goal.  In the month of April, I decided to do a challenge on my own. I designed an Egg-a-Day. My family eats lots of eggs so we always have lots of supply.  I didn't hard boil all of them, so I was able to use the eggs for all of our cooking needs. And why not... this mini canvas goes to waste if I don't decorate it before using it.

It was fun to figure out not only what I was going to be designing the eggs with, but also what media, and how I would take the photo to document the adventure. I'll share a couple of eggs here, but feel free to visit MiniMatisseArt on Instagram to see the whole group.

I started the series with some of my more regular used themes in my drawings such as hands and eyes.  These are subjects that I use in a lot of my sketchbook designs. 

Many of my designs were created with Posca Pens. I love these things! I used them in my sketchbook all the time.  I don't have it in my budget yet to order them for my classroom, but I hope to have them someday for my students to use as well. I used many mediums to create my eggs. One of the most popular was these 'Tissue Paper Bleed Eggs'. For these eggs, I used the traditional egg dye kit to soaked the eggs in. Then when I removed them and they were still wet, I wrapped bleeding tissue paper on the egg and let it sit for a few minutes. After removing the paper, the ink would stay on the egg and you would end up with this tie-dye effect. Really simple and an awesome result! 

I created some very cutesy eggs just for fun! Again, half of the fun was taking the pictures so finding props and the right setting was important to me.

Some eggs were not even my idea... My sister came up with the corn idea. My husband came up with the 'title of the eggs'. I was inspired by my dear friend Ashley McKee (@Ashcanworks) for the 'U Matter' egg. She and her husband have developed this symbol and sell buttons on their Etsy shop. 

Sometimes I was inspired by my environment. The shell eggs and the colorful insides of eggs were both inspired by a visit to Florida over spring break. The open eggs were inspired by a piece of Artwork I saw while visiting Busch Gardens and the shells were inspired by our visit to the beach.  My husband just rolled his eyes when I said we needed to stop at a store on our vacation to pick up eggs... but he did it... he gets me :) The strawberries were inspired by prepping lunches for the week for my family. They just looked so pretty in the berry bowl my Aunt made our family. The proper lobster was inspired by a sketchbook drawing I did of a still life while out with my family at a restaurant called Grand Catch in St. Paul.

Other eggs were inspired by books. My daughter was doing research for her upcoming 'Wax Museum Project' on Julia Child. She got this book by Lisa Congdon about a variety of Bad Ass women that changed the world, illustrated beautifully might I add. The butterflies on the cover were perfect for me to draw on eggs. Then 'The Good Egg' by Jory John and Pete Oswald was introduced to me by Hassan's Media Specialist, Meagan Harapat. A-MAZ-ING book. Great illustrations and perfect to emulate for this project. 

Some of the eggs were inspired by Artist I admire. I admire the simplicity of Melissa Doty's work. She was perfect inspiration to the egg with the colorful half circle and bold black line. On my spring break experience, I spent some time in St. Petersberg, a city filled with Street Art. I was introduced to the work of @Kosharekart. I made the stacking doll eggs inspired by her work. The sweet garden and frog image above was inspired by Lauren Lowen's work. She is such a wonderful illustrator and after using her for inspiration for one of my lessons, I discovered she's a really good person too. She sent my class a letter encouraging them to continue creating! Below you see the Notorious RGB (Ruth Bader Ginsberg)... not an Artist, but certainly an inspiration. 

And other days, I just drew a bunny on an egg... and that was OK too. 

I really did have a fun time with this project over the month of April. If I'm feeling it next year, I might just do it again. But for this year, I'll kiss this project goodbye and start on another focus... Yep, That is right, I'm already working on another 'challenge' for myself. Start watching Instagram (@MiniMatisseArt) for my 'Wearable Art' project for the month of May.