Eggshell mosaic stencil. Just look at what masterpieces are obtained from eggshells

Using eggs to create paintings was invented by medieval artists. Paints based on natural materials formed the basis of the most outstanding works of art. This master class offers to look at the egg as a tool for creativity from a new angle. This time, the shell will go.

For the project you will need:

  • eggshell;
  • gouache of different colors;
  • water;
  • brushes for paint and varnish;
  • colorless varnish;
  • tweezers;
  • acetone;
  • PVA glue

First you need to prepare the eggshell. If the eggs have traces of contamination, it is best to wash them before cracking them. Dry the eggs with a towel and split into two halves. Let the shell dry. Apply gouache to the halves of the dry shell. Fresh paint does not need to be diluted with water so that the layer is dense and uniform. Since you need different colors, make sure that there is a napkin or towel on the table with which you can wipe off traces of different colors.

Paint the whole shell. It is better to prepare it with a margin. Instead of gouache, you can use acrylic paint, especially if you want to get a gold or silver shell. Wait until the paint is completely dry before applying varnish. Lift the halves of the shell with tweezers so as not to damage the color, and spread them with varnish. If you use varnish in an aerosol, you can spray all the shells right on the table. If pieces break off during work, cover them with varnish and paint - they will be useful for mosaics. When you're done, wash your nail polish brush and tweezers in acetone. Leave the varnish to dry.

After the shells are completely dry, break them into small pieces. It is important that they are practically flat. It remains to choose the surface that will be decorated. It can be a cardboard base with a printed pattern, a vase or even a mug.

For such a mosaic, PVA glue is well suited. Apply the base and let it dry a little. Then apply glue to the colored piece of shell, holding it with tweezers. Submit your chosen drawing.

Bulky objects, such as vases or flower pots, can also be decorated with shells.


You can complement the mosaic with other types of decor. On vases, pots and other items that perform not only a decorative function, it will not be superfluous to additionally varnish the mosaic.

The original mosaic made in this technique looks on jewelry.

You can try to imitate the pattern of natural stone.

You can create interesting panels on any topic. For example, such a picture can decorate a bathroom. But for a wet room, an additional layer of varnish is needed.

A creative person does not waste anything, not even an eggshell. There are eggs in every refrigerator, but most do not even suspect that you can create a real work of art from their shell. By its hardness, many professionals compare it with marble. The surface of a chicken egg is very difficult to scratch. That is why the eggshell mosaic is so highly valued and looks just amazing. With the help of eggshells, you can create magnificent panels and paintings, do decoupage, create original mosaics and much more. Eggshells are a wonderful material for creativity, and we will prove it!

The creation of picturesque paintings from broken shells is called Crackle. In the East, this technique has been known since ancient times. Today, with its help, you can interestingly transform any object. This creates the effect of a cracked lacquer coating.

Decoupage eggshell

Let's make decoupage with eggshells using the example of such a box. According to this principle, you can decoupage the shell of any surface.

To do this, we need items that are difficult to imagine together under any other circumstances: eggshells, paints, a manicure stick, PVA glue, a brush, and the cardboard box itself.

There was an old cardboard box, and we decided to give it a new life! First you need to “sand” the entire box outside and inside with sandpaper, large enough, and then go through the “zero” again.

For decoupage we need: eggshell, brush, PVA glue, manicure stick

First, apply glue to a small area of ​​the box (we work with small areas, because PVA dries quickly enough). Then we take a small piece of the shell, apply it to the surface and lightly press the shell with a stick so that it cracks, as shown in the photo:

With the sharp end of the stick, we push the shell fragments to the desired distance, thus forming a mosaic pattern. Shell fragments, as well as the distance between them, can be large or small at your discretion. After the shells are moved apart to the desired distance, they must be pressed to the surface with the flat end of the stick.

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Needlework

Many centuries ago, Chinese and Vietnamese lacquer artists began to use this raw material to create their miniatures. They drew attention to the fact that when pressed on the shell, a beautiful pattern is formed from the finest cracks, making the blanks look like the surface of a cracked rock or an ancient wall. The shell began to be used in lacquer painting to depict various buildings and crowns of flowering trees. Masters of the East managed to turn the main drawback of the eggshell - fragility - into its main artistic merit.

In general, the decoration of the background with a mesh of cracks is used not only in eggshell mosaics, but also in other decorative crafts. Such a pattern can be seen on pottery covered with a special glaze, or on hand-painted fabric. Regardless of what material they are made on, such cracks are always called craquelure, and the technique of creating a pattern of cracks that creates the effect of antiquity is called CRACKLE.


Unlike eggshell toys, crackle mosaics made from the same material are strong and durable. If you work carefully, carefully finish even small details of a mosaic set, you can learn how to make crafts that are in no way inferior to purchased souvenirs. Eggshell ornaments are used to decorate not only flat objects - all kinds of caskets and wall panels, but also blanks turned on a lathe - vases, pencil holders, decorative dishes and plates.

Let's try to make a mosaic picture out of an eggshell or, as experienced artists say, a mosaic set. Unprepared raw materials for our mosaic are more like garbage - these are not even whole eggshells, but just their uneven fragments. It is not easy to imagine that facing plates can be made from them, which have a special decorative property and look like ivory. Nevertheless, it is so.

Of course, guys, you will immediately want to decorate a specific thing with a crackle mosaic - decorate a box or a vase with a shell. Take your time. Let's first practice on small boards, and then, having mastered the secrets of the craft, we will do more complex work. By the way, if any educational craft turns out to be very successful, it can be used as the basis for a small wall panel or other souvenir.

You will need:

Before you start work, you need to stock up on raw materials, that is, eggshells.

1. Be sure to rinse the shells in lukewarm water.

2. And then dip into a solution of baking soda in order to degrease their surface.

3. Now it remains only to dry the blanks well.

4. And for the time being, put them in cardboard boxes for storage. When a large number of shells of different shades are typed, we will be engaged in the manufacture of facing plates.

MANUFACTURE OF FACING PLATES

First of all, we will decide which glue is more convenient to use for gluing parts.
The fact is that when using PVA, the quality of gluing is higher, but insufficiently experienced craftsmen often fail to firmly connect the shell to the paper.
Working with "Moment" is easier, but this glue has a pungent odor, and the strength of the connection of parts decreases over time.
If we choose PVA, then it is enough to apply a thin layer of glue on the inner surface of the shells, and when gluing the parts with “Moment”, it is necessary to lubricate both the lining and the shell.

Now we are all set to flatten and smooth the shells.

If you carefully examine the shell of a fresh egg, you can see a thin film lining it from the inside. Upon impact, such a shell will not crumble into separate fragments - its pieces will be held together by an elastic film. We will use the hint of nature and glue a special lining under the fragile shells, for example, a sheet of thin paper. The blanks supplemented with lining are easy to cut with ordinary scissors - the shells do not crumble into separate pieces. But how to glue semicircular shells to a flat sheet of paper? That's what we need a trowel for.

Lay out the prepared shell with the convex side up on sheets of paper. While doing this work, it’s a good idea to sort the blanks by color - stick only snow-white shells on one sheet, yellowish ones on the other, pinkish-brown on the third, and spotted fragments of quail eggs on the fourth:

Such a division into colors and shades will help us when making a mosaic set.

We cover the shells with a sheet of plywood and slightly press on it - you will hear a slight crackle, and the blanks will be flattened.

If the raw material was glued with PVA, we will hold the plywood in this position for about a minute, and if with the “Moment”, then we will immediately proceed to the next operation.

We take a trowel in our hands and with a little effort we iron each piece of the shell.

The blanks will crack into many tiny pieces and at the same time adhere more firmly to the paper. Let's take a closer look - an almost indistinguishable network of cracks covers the shell. These are the same craquelure, which we have already discussed. So far, they do not affect the appearance of the facing plates, and we have yet to develop the crackle pattern.

Facing plates must be covered on top with a protective layer of tracing paper. The protective layer will not only protect the shell from crumbling, but also facilitate the transfer of the working drawing to the material. It is necessary to stick the tracing paper with a paste, it is easily washed off from the surface of the workpieces, leaving no traces. Under translucent paper, it can be difficult to distinguish the color of the prepared raw materials, so we mark each sealed sheet with a small shell of the desired shade. The label will tell us the color of the blanks hidden under the paper.

MAKE A MOSAIC

And now, when we have prepared a sufficient number of facing plates, let's try to make our first mosaic set.
First, we will master the simplest kind of crackle mosaic, and then, having gained a little experience, more complex ones.
The easiest way to stick on the background are the details of the ornament pre-cut from the eggshell. This method is suitable for small jobs in which image details do not exceed the dimensions of flattened shells, and a significant amount of space is given to the background.

Now that we have prepared a sufficient number of facing plates, let's try to make our first mosaic set.

First, copy the ornament shown in the figure:

Let's put tracing paper on the page of the book and outline the contours of the image - the working drawing is ready.

It can be used repeatedly - just put a sheet of carbon paper under the tracing paper and circle the lines of the ornament again. When making a mosaic set, the drawing will have to be transferred twice - onto the board, which serves as the basis for the product, and onto the facing plates.

Applying an image to a smooth board is easy - you need to put carbon paper and tracing paper on it, fasten them with buttons and carefully outline the lines with a hard, sharp
sharpened pencil.

The drawing is transferred to small, uneven pieces of the shell piece by piece.

Let's first number all the details of the ornament as shown in the figure - this will help us not to make mistakes when assembling the mosaic.

Now let's put the image of one of the parts of the ornament on the shell and circle it with a pencil.

Let's assign each part a number corresponding to the number in the working drawing.

Having cut out all the parts of the mosaic from the eggshell, grease them on the inside with PVA glue and glue them to the background.

Let's wait for the glue to dry completely and remove the protective layer of paper covering the shells. To do this, slightly moisten the mosaic set with a sponge or a wide brush. Let's wait until the paper softens, and remove it from the shell.

The crackle mosaic is almost ready, and all that remains for us is to color the background and develop the craquelures.

We use black or colored ink for painting crafts.

Our choice is not accidental - the chemical properties of the carcass allow you to quickly and efficiently finish the workpiece. The bile that is part of this dye penetrates into the thinnest, invisible cracks, dragging particles of paint with it, and the shellac contained in them, after drying, ceases to dissolve in water and turns into a kind of cement that holds the tiny shells together.

First, ink on the background of the mosaic set. And then, when it dries, - and an ornament from a shell. When coloring the shells, it is very interesting to watch how graceful dark branches of cracks grow. Here they rush forward, scatter to the sides, branch out, filling the white background with an unusual mesh pattern.

Having shown the craquelures in this way, wipe the plates from the shell with a damp cloth, removing excess ink. After rubbing, the paint will remain only in the cracks, and the ornament itself will again acquire a white or cream shade.

POLISHING THE MOSAIC SET

Sanding a mosaic set is a very responsible operation! The thickness of the shell is small, and careless movement of the grinding bar can easily damage the facing plate.

To begin with, we will process the mosaic set with a wooden block wrapped in the finest sandpaper. Then we start polishing. We need a very simple tool for polishing - a piece of ordinary writing paper.

In the manufacture of paper, substances such as chalk and kaolin are introduced into it, giving it a roughness. With their help, we will polish the mosaic set, which, after a short treatment, will acquire a soft silky sheen, which is especially noticeable against the dark background of the ink-painted board.

Elena Artamonova "Unusual souvenirs and toys"









And that's not far from perfection.

You can learn how to make complex, beautiful mosaic paintings yourself. For the first experiments, expensive smalt can be replaced by eggshells, fortunately, colored shells remain in abundance after Easter.

The shell mosaic was inspired by the paintings of contemporary French impressionist Jean-Marc Janiaczyk. He paints in palette knife technique. Thanks to the palette knife (artistic tool), the paints are applied to the canvas in large, dense, uniform strokes, the color gradations are clear and clear. Paintings made in the palette knife technique seem to be created in order to be embodied in a mosaic.

Jean-Marc's paintings are full of light, sun, and no matter what season he paints, they always feel a joyful mood. Here are some examples of his work:


Print your favorite image of the picture on the printer in A3 format. When printing, some details of the picture may be cut off. But this can be fixed by gluing the image.


MATERIALS

  • foam board
  • egg shells in different colors
  • printout of the picture
  • markers
  • PVA glue

TOOLS

  • tassel
  • toothpick

Step 1

With a felt-tip pen, highlight the color spots in the picture. When working with a black and white printout, you will always have to check with a color image. Apply glue in several places around the perimeter of the printout on the reverse side of the design and stick it onto the foam board with the design facing up.

Step 2

The technique for creating a mosaic is extremely simple: choose a shell that matches the color of the fragment on the printout. Apply glue to the desired fragment with a size corresponding to the size of the shell.

Step 3

Put a piece of shell on the glue and crush with your finger.

Step 4

 

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