Van Gogh Easter Eggs
This post was supposed to be about monogrammed eggs. We used a white crayon to make our initials on the egg and then paint. It totally didn’t work.
The painted wood eggs simply were too smooth for the crayon wax to stick well. I should have grabbed the unfinished ones. So we’ll try that again next year, instead this post evolved from our failure. I told my son to just paint them however he wanted. Suddenly, he said: “Look, I made swirls like van Gogh!” So we grabbed one of the few art books that is not already in storage while we sell the house and looked at some of his art.
After talking about the colors and how “Gloppy” 
his paint was on the canvas, we added more paint to the Van Gogh Easter eggs and made a few more swirls. This was so much fun to do and you could easily adapt it to various artists. Paint small dots for George Seurat, splatter paint them for Jackson Pollack, do large color blocks for Mark Rothko or even cut some collage paper and modge podge it on for Matisse! The variations are endless. Grabbing a few eggs every year and choosing an artist to use as inspiration is a new Easter tradition. After a few years, we will have our own collection of masterpiece eggs.
For this project, we used pre-painted white wood eggs from Michael’s, acrylic paint and paint brushes. Ignore the crayons that were a big old flop!
rosa says
check out http://www.amazon.com/Henri-Egg-Artiste-Marcus-Pfister/dp/0735821305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302775723&sr=8-1 – same idea! 🙂
admin says
So cool- I need to get my hands on that book!
Melanie says
Love the idea! Our son is still too little to understand what an artist is, but I’ll try to remeber this for coming years! This time he just loved painting our easter eggs with the help of a shoe box! Have a look if you like: http://www.menschenskind-blog.de/2011/03/30/ostereier-anmalen-kleinkind/
Love from Germany
Melanie
welcome to our wonderland says
those are so pretty might have to go grab some wood eggs tomorrow so my girls can do this!
ana says
i love the evolution of an idea from a mistake!
Melinda-LookWhatMomFound...and Dad too! says
really pretty!
The Activity Mom says
I love how childrens’ brains work! So creative and a clever connection. =)
Jenny says
We love studying the artists, so I LOVE this!
Sheri says
These are beautiful even if the monograms didn’t work. (They almost look marbled to me!) I also love how you made suggestions for various art styles too!
Anna says
What a FANTASTIC idea! Isn’t he clever?! Forget the monogramming- this is far, far better on so many levels, not least because it was child-led! Beautiful. Now how are you going to display them?! 🙂
admin says
Once they dried I told him he could display them wherever he wanted. He then said “No they are my bat bombs and they splatter paint on the bad guys.” I suggested that either he choose a nice place or I would ( and a reminder about our family stance on weapons) . So now they are in the dining room on the wine cabinet we haven’t used since 2005.
Oh and I couldn’t agree more it is soooooo much cooler for those exact reasons!
JDaniel4's Mom says
What wonderful eggs! I love the idea of designing the way a particular artist would.
Jamie @ hands on : as we grow says
Yeah, I’ve always had problem using the white crayon too – it has never turned out for me. Lovely Van Gogh though 🙂 I bet you could do these on real eggs too – just find some food friendly dye 🙂
I’m featuring this on my 2 dozen ideas and techniques to dye Easter Eggs today!
Jamie @ hands on : as we grow
sandi says
LOVE this idea! I was looking for Easter egg inspiration for my k class. And this is it! We made our own versions of Starry Night before Christmas, so we are already into Mr. Van Gogh swirls. Thanks.
Sandi
Amanda says
Hi Allison! Since Facebook is notorious for not letting page owners know when I tag them, I thought I would stop by myself and let you know I featured this post and my readers loved it! https://www.facebook.com/CraftsbyAmanda/photos/pb.323548680216.-2207520000.1395952983./10153968414635217/?type=3&theaterter
Allison McDonald says
Thank you so much!!