Mosaics are an interesting art form. The various types of materials you can use are endless. Some are very detailed and extremely complicated in design. Others are abstract and made of bottles, broken plates, and pieces of ceramic. I always wanted to make a mosaic, but thought it required buying a lot of tools and expensive materials. That was until I read an article about egg shell mosaics.
Egg shells are great for making mosaics for a few reasons. One, they are free if you happen to eat a lot of eggs. Two, they are thin and light, so you can use white glue to adhere them to a surface and they don’t weigh down the piece you are making the mosaic on. Three, they can be painted whatever color you can make with your paints. What more could you want?
These are the materials you will need: white or craft glue, egg shells (preferably in big pieces like after you crack one open not from peeling them), some kind of surface to make your mosaic on, spray paint or acrylic paint in at least two different shades, and a fixative.
I started my project with deciding what kind of surface I was going to make the mosaic on. Mosaics are often seen on furniture, but I have seen walls, floors, flower pots, and picture frames with mosaics on them. For this project I bought a 18″ square table from IKEA in a lime green color. Since the surface was already clean, smooth, and a fun, bright color, I was ready to start my mosaic. If you are using a surface that is not clean and smooth, you have to make it just that. If your piece is wooden, you should sand it down, give it a coat of primer (or if you’re like me, just paint it the color you want and see how well the color shows), and paint it a color you want the surface to be. If it is not made of wood, skip the sanding and primer step and just paint it the color you want it to be. Since we are using egg shells, there is no need for grout, so the surface color of your piece will be seen in between your shells and should be taken into consideration when designing your mosaic.
Next, decide on a color scheme or image for your mosaic. I am more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of designer, so I went with an abstract image that slowly started to form as I began gluing down the egg shells. I am a strong believer in not over thinking your design and letting it take form as you go. However, there are some amazing mosaics out there that were carefully constructed and well thought out. You be the judge of what type of design you want. You can do some research and look up some mosaics, but I suggest looking at only a few and not trying to copy anything. If you have too detailed of an image in your head, chances are, it’s not going to look exactly as you envisioned, and you will just end up getting frustrated. If you still do not know what you want to do for a design, look at some art nouveau designs, fabric patterns, or designs from art periods that you love.
Once you know the colors you want to use, buy the spray paint in these shades. If you want to make it easy for yourself, use only two colors for the egg shells and a third color for the surface of the piece. Lay some newspaper outside, place the shells on the paper, and spray them so you don’t see any more white. You will probably need to give them two coats and make sure you rotate them once they are dry to make sure you don’t have any white (or brown) spots.If you want a more complicated design and will be using more than four colors, buy acrylic paint and hand paint the shells.
Now it’s time to make the mosaic. When making a mosaic, it is best to start from the outside and work your way in, but since the pieces are so small and not sharp, it’s not a big deal where you start. I started with blue and green pieces on the outside of the table until I ran out of shells. Then I painted some more shells bright yellow and used them for the center. All you have to do is put a thin layer of glue on the surface, take a piece of the painted shell and flatten it on the surface with your finger. The shell will break into little pieces and you want to make sure they are completely flat against the surface. Since the shells are rounded, you really have to press on them to make sure they will stick.
Once you are done gluing the egg shells on, and the glue is dry, spray or paint the entire piece with a fixative. This is clear and will give the mosaic a nice finish and protect it from getting chipped. I have used both a spray fixative and mod podge and suggest using the spray. It has a more uniform finish and you can buy it in glossy or matte. And that’s it. Your mosaic is finished.
Now that your first egg shell mosaic is complete, try experimenting with the size of the shell pieces and the intricacy of the design. After making this table, I hand painted shells in a variety of colors and shades. I used these pieces to make a mosaic of a Van Gogh painting. It was done on cardboard, I drew a grid on the board to help me map it out, it took forever to do, and it’s still not finished, but it was a fun learning experience. You can also cut out some of the steps from the process and use the natural color of the eggs. When I buy eggs from local farmers at the market, the egg shells are usually a variety of shades of off white and brown. This would make a nice neutral colored piece and natural colors always have a beauty to them that you can never recreate.
1 Comment
September 19, 2009 at 3:18 pm
i want to see your van gogh one!