Eggshell Mosaic Technique. Material on the topic: eggshell mosaic

Mosaic from an eggshell. Master Class

Master Class. Working with natural material

Eggshell panel "Amanita"

Target: to teach how to make an eggshell mosaic according to the plan, to be able to design the work.

Application: The material is designed for children in grade 4, making birthday gifts, decorating a room, crafts for an exhibition.

Equipment: round board, gouache paints, brush, PVA glue, colorless varnish, gold stained glass outline, toothpick, black marker.

Step by step workflow

The attractiveness of an eggshell mosaic is in its accessibility: you can achieve excellent results with your own hands, without having any special skills or special devices. You can decorate a variety of objects, decorate any surface

1. I use raw egg shells. For example, I cook an omelet: the contents are in a pan, and the shells are in business. Before further use they should be thoroughly washed in cold water, carefully remove the films from the inside and dry.

2. We take a drawing of our future mosaic printed on a computer. We transfer it to the finished basis.

3. The shell is easily glued to PVA. We smear a small area of ​​the picture with glue, break it off and lay it, choosing it by color and shape - as in a regular mosaic.

4. Fill in the shell with all the free places in the figure.

5. We lay out the whole drawing with the shell.

6. Along the edges of the board, we also lay out a pattern of pieces of shell.

7. We paint the shell with gouache paints. With a stained-glass gold outline, draw the antennae at the spikelets, if desired, put dots along the edges of the pattern. Outline the entire drawing with a thin black marker. The finished panel must be varnished and your work will sparkle!

* When working with varnish, observe safety precautions. Work in a well ventilated area.

8. Finished works pupils in this technique.

9. A product made using this technique will decorate the interior of any home; and the creative process will not cause great difficulties, it will only bring a lot of pleasure! Landscape in the mountains.

Creative success to you!

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 reverse side drawing and stick on the foam board with the pattern 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

At creative person nothing goes to waste, not even eggshells. 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. Surface chicken egg very hard 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 lived an old cardboard box, and they decided to give her 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.

Read more on next page

Press "Like" and get only the best posts on Facebook ↓

Needlework

First, briefly about this technique.
Everything is very simple - from an eggshell, crushed into small pieces and painted with any paint, you can lay out a mosaic of any complexity.
For example, very simple:

Or real pictures:

You can also decorate interior items with such a mosaic:

For those who are interested in this technique - an article from G. Fedotov's book "Encyclopedia of Crafts".

Egg shells are difficult to scratch with a knife and are close to marble in hardness. It is perfectly ground and polished, acquiring a pleasant soft sheen.

In oriental lacquer painting, eggshells were glued where it was necessary to depict a cracked stone wall or rock. A scattering of small shells imitated the flowering of spring gardens.

The expressiveness of the crackle mosaic is given by the so-called craquelure - cracks that form on the surface various materials whimsical mesh pattern.

When straightened, the eggshell breaks into many tiny pieces that do not fall apart due to the thin film on the inside. Many of the cracks formed between the shells are almost invisible. But as soon as they are developed with some kind of dye, the mesh pattern of cracks becomes visible, turning an ordinary eggshell into an attractive decorative material.

Material preparation

The collected shells are dipped for two to three minutes in a five percent solution of baking soda, and then thoroughly washed in running water.

The shell is so fragile that it has become a kind of symbol of fragility. When making a mosaic set, the fragility of the eggshell causes a lot of trouble, forcing the master to take special measures and be extremely careful.

But if the shell is covered on both sides with a thin layer of some kind of elastic glue, then it can be cut with scissors. True, the edges of the cut shell will crumble slightly. If you stick thin paper on the shell, you can avoid this trouble. The inner surface of the shell is smeared with a thin layer of glue, such as PVA (Fig. 1, a).
Then the shells smeared with glue are laid out on a thin sheet of paper (preferably colored) and pressed on top with a flat board (Fig. 1, b). After about a minute, the plank is laid aside and each shell is ironed with effort with a wooden trowel (Fig. 1, c).
The trowel is a solid wood rod, the oblique cut of which is polished to a shine. Separate pieces of the shell will split into smaller parts that will fit snugly against the paper. After that, a plank is again placed on top and pressed down with a heavy load (Fig. 1, d). After two or three minutes, when the glue sets, the paper, together with the shell glued to it, is smeared with a thin layer of flour or starch paste. On the surface of the shell smeared with paste, tissue paper and carefully smoothed with palms (Fig. 1, e). A weight is placed on top and the glue is allowed to dry for several hours (Fig. 1, f).

Having pasted all the prepared shells in this way, the sheets are folded into a folder. In this form, they can be stored for a very long time.

On a colored or dark background, the silhouettes of the pasted shell are clearly visible even through tissue paper. This makes it possible to correctly navigate when cutting blanks on which the contours of mosaic elements are drawn. The silhouette of the pasted shell is unique, it can give impetus to the imagination of the artist. You can enter the contours of various animals, human figures, buildings, cars, plants, and much more into it (Fig. 1, g).

Having drawn on the shell found, for example, the contours of a fish, they cut the shell with scissors around the silhouette, not trying to work out small details. It is easy to cut the shell with scissors along straight and curved lines only from the outside (Fig. 1, h). All kinds of recesses, concave cuts and holes are made with a scalpel or cutter, as well as drills after gluing the shell onto the base substrate.

Making a mosaic by removing the shell

All works are carried out on separate boards, which play the role of the basis of the mosaic set - the substrate. The prepared shell is cut into polygons with straight sides (Fig. 2, a). At the same time, they try to make them, if possible, have right angles. This will make it easier to fit them to the base sticker. One of the sides of the plank is completely pasted over with a shell, carefully fitting the cut polygons to each other. Each polygon is pressed as tightly as possible to the base with a trowel. Then, on the shell glued to the board, they draw with a simple pencil contours of the intended image (Fig. 2, b).

The figure shows the sequence of execution of a mosaic set with an image of an elephant.
In areas where there should be a background, excess shell is removed with various cutting tools. For drilling blind holes, gimlets or a small drill are used.

Carving, as well as chipping off the shell, is done with a scalpel or a joint knife. Engraving is done with engravers. Work begins with drilling (Fig. 2, c1), then engraving is performed along pencil lines (Fig. 2, c2), after which they begin to chip the shell in the areas reserved for the background. After finishing mechanical processing, the tissue paper pasted on it is removed from the surface of the shell. Preliminarily, the paper is carefully moistened with water using a brush (Fig. 2, d1).
After some time, the soaked paper is easily separated from the shell (Fig. 2, d2). In the places of docking, small seams sometimes remain, into which small shells are glued.

At the next stage of work on the mosaic set, they begin to identify craquelure. In this case, the background is painted in any color, for example, black, dark brown, dark blue (Fig. 2, d3). For these purposes, it is convenient to use ink. The composition of the carcass includes an alcohol solution of shellac, dyes, glycerin, bile and antiseptics.

Due to the presence of bile - a surfactant - the mascara easily penetrates into the smallest cracks, dragging all the other components with it. Filling the cracks between the individual shells, the ink not only colors them, but also fastens them together. This is facilitated by shellac, which, after drying, does not dissolve even with water.

After making sure that the mosaic set is evenly colored, remove excess ink from the surface of the shell with a slightly damp cloth or swab (Fig. 2, e1). After waiting for the remaining ink to dry completely, they begin to polish the mosaic with fine-grained sandpaper, reinforced on a wooden block (Fig. 2, e).

Grind the surface of the shell very carefully - after all, the eggshell is so thin that in some places it can be easily removed completely. After finishing grinding, sandpaper is replaced with ordinary writing. It also has abrasive properties due to the presence of koalin and chalk in it. The polished surface of the eggshell acquires a soft sheen and vaguely resembles old ivory or marble. The dark matte background emphasizes and enhances the expressiveness of the mosaic set (Fig. 2f).

Mosaic set with mastic background

If the background occupies a significant place in the mosaic set, as, for example, in the composition with the image of owls, then it makes no sense to completely paste over the surface of the decorated object with the shell (Fig. 3, a). After all, about half of the glued shell will have to be removed later. In this case, it is better to paste over with a shell only those areas where the mosaic images will be directly located.

Work on a mosaic set begins with the fact that the prepared drawing is transferred to a wooden base.
Then generalized silhouettes are cut out of the shell with scissors and glued onto the base. After the glue dries, the excess shell (it is shaded in our figure) is removed with a scalpel or cutter (Fig. 3, b).

Usually, cutter marks degrade the surface of the background, and in large areas this is very noticeable. However, flaws can be removed by filling the background with a layer of special mastic flush with the pasted shell (Fig. 3, c). As a mastic, epoxy glue with a filler of graphite, stone dust, brick powder is most often used. You can paint mastic with any dry pigments, as well as oil paints.

Mastic is carefully applied to areas of the background with a wooden spatula or a sculptural stack. As soon as the mastic has completely hardened, the mosaic set is carefully leveled with a file. Then the mosaic is moistened clean water. Cigarette paper pasted with a paste on the shell gets wet and easily separated from it. It remains only with the help of a brush and ink to reveal craquelure shells on the surface. If the mastic is colored, for example, in dark blue, then blue ink is also used to develop craquelure (Fig. 3, d).

Finally, the set is ground and polished. The entire surface of the mosaic, including the background, acquires an even soft sheen.

Mosaic with multicolor background

The background can not only emphasize the beauty and expressiveness of the material used in the mosaic, but also actively participate in the color scheme of the composition. In this case, the details from the shell will serve as a sort of partitions separating one part of the background from another (Fig. 4, a).

Mastic of three colors - brown, black and red - is prepared in different jars. First, the background areas are filled with brown (Fig. 4, b), and then with dark red mastic (Fig. 4, c). To obtain a mottled background, black mastic is mixed with shells crushed in a mortar (Fig. 4, d).

To prevent the mastic from spreading, edges of thin cardboard are glued along the edges of the plank with a mosaic set. After the mastic has hardened, the sides are removed, the mosaic set is carefully leveled with a file and the remnants of tissue paper are removed. The shell is covered with black ink. As soon as it penetrates deep enough into the cracks of the shell, its excess is removed with a slightly damp cloth. After a few minutes the ink dries, and the set is sanded with fine-grained sandpaper mounted on a wooden block, and then polished. The black mottled background of the mosaic will appear to be made from many individual shells.

If it was possible to prepare a shell that has different natural color shades, then, if possible, this modest palette is also used, for example, when working on a mosaic panel based on ancient architecture (Fig. 5). Let's say the master has white, brown and cream shells at his disposal. White shells are suitable for imitating snow, white stone walls, brown for fortress walls and towers, and cream for buildings inside the fortress. This is, of course, an approximate layout.

The use of a shell of one shade or another will depend on the nature of the image and the task facing the artist.

Mosaic on turning products

Performed on lathe wood products can be successfully decorated with eggshell mosaics (Fig. 6). When turning on workpieces, small indentations of no more than 0.5 mm are pre-selected with a cutter. Mosaic elements are glued to the surface to be decorated, carefully rubbed against it with a trowel (Fig. 6, a). Then the product with the mosaic set glued to it is tightly wrapped with some kind of tourniquet (belt or rope), tightly laying coil to coil (Fig. 6, b). So that the glue protruding from under the shell does not stick to the tourniquet, the product is pre-wrapped with newsprint. After the final drying of the glue, the tourniquet is removed, and the areas where the shell is not glued are filled with epoxy mastic (Fig. 6, c).

When the mastic hardens, start grinding the mosaic set. Grinding can be done directly on a lathe, observing the necessary precautions, or by hand, strengthening the sandpaper on a wooden block with a grooved recess corresponding to the diameter of the workpiece (Fig. 6, d). After identifying craquelure on the shell and subsequent polishing, the wooden parts of the product are painted in a dark color with a stain.

In conclusion, the entire product is rubbed with wax mastic or varnished and polished.