Since my parents are also both creative people, I often brainstorm my creative projects with them. It never disappoints. I sat down with my mom and she helped me come up with the idea for making a sort of... egg ship in a bottle. To break the egg and then repair it with a little "bird" inside. The bird being an origami crane.
There were so many problems with this.
I used our own eggs we bought from the grocery store to try out my techniques. First I tried covering the egg with tape and then cutting the tape off of the egg. Then draining the egg and gluing the broken shell pieces onto the tape cast. That didn't work. Get this, eggs don't like to be modpodged to tape.
Second I tried draining the egg and carving the hollow shell as I've seen other people do before. Only I don't have patience or a dremel. Also, it was at this point I decided blowing the insides out of an egg was not nearly as easy as everyone made it sound like it was going to be. I used my x-acto knife to try cutting into the egg. But it involved too much force, there was no way I could cut a pattern without little cracks in the other parts of the shell.
It was at this point with my half broken shell that I considered cutting it straight down the middle. I began cutting down the middle and then a big chunk fell out of the bottom. This, I thought, would be a perfect place for the crane to be looking out of.
I had my design.
I went back to the kitchen and blew out the egg I was given in class, then cut down the middle and pulled a chunk out of the bottom for the crane to look out of.
Did I mention I was babysitting the entire time I was working on this? Because I was. I can't tell you how many questions I got about the weird things I was doing with eggs.
Then I went and looked up how to make an origami crane because, as it happens, I didn't know how to make an origami crane. I'm actually pretty good at origami, though, so I figured I wouldn't have much of an issue with it. It took a couple tries, mostly because I don't have any perfectly square paper in my house so I had to cut my paper to size.
Once I had my crane in my egg I decided it was too white. While I was making it, I imagined I would have a white egg and an orange crane. So naturally I started painting the egg red. Well, first actually, I tried dying the egg red. It didn't work. I don't know what I was going for. Sharpies and water. I probably could have looked up a good egg dying technique online. Gone out and bought food colouring. But I didn't do either of those things. Instead I broke out my water colour set and started watercolour painting my egg.
Side note, I don't watercolour paint ever. This was my first time opening a set I was given years ago. It's at this point I start to think, "Gosh, this smells like formaldehyde." Only to look it up and find there's formaldehyde in the paint. If I didn't already hate watercolour painting, I now have a solid reason to. Also, I'm somewhat disturbed by my ability to accurately point out the scent of formaldehyde.
So, with the smell of death thick in the air, I look at my red egg and think, "This looks like a complete gore fest." I wash all the paint off leaving a white egg with red membrane and little red cracks in it. I was very happy with the look of this.
I went on to paint my little crane red, wait for it to dry, get impatient and just shove it into the egg half dried.
I like to think my egg and little red crane are representative of birth and I'm not bothered by the blood red all over it because birth is a traumatic thing. But very precious. And very fragile.
I'm glad I was able to find a way to use my egg that didn't involve totally destroying it... exactly. I'm also glad I was able to use so many forms of art I've never used before. This is probably what I'd call my first "sculpture."
It's not exactly what I originally intended but I like the end result and I feel it carries the same spirit as my "ship in a bottle" idea.
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