decorating eggs: high-tech vs. low-tech

I recently rediscovered my Ukrainian egg decorating supplies, and, coincidentally, the same day my Dad surprised me with a gift- an Eggbot and an amazing rainbow selection of Sharpies!  You're probably asking- what's that? An egg robot?  Well, sortof...from the Eggbot web site- "The Eggbot is an open-source art robot that can draw on spherical or egg-shaped objects from the size of a ping pong ball to that of a small grapefruit." It's controlled through your computer, and it comes as a kit that you have to assemble.  That was the fun part for my Dad, and the fun part for me is going to be creating designs for the Eggbot to draw on the egg using Inkscape, a freeware illustration program similar to Adobe Illustrator.  I haven't gotten that far yet, but I have made a few eggs using the sample designs.

  

 The far right egg in the front row was my first try...tip #1: read all of the directions first. ; ) If you do you'll get something that will make you very happy, like this:

 

The Ukrainian egg (or pysanky) decorating method is a lot of fun too.  It takes some getting used to the way the wax flows through the kistka, and figuring out what order to cover and dye the lines in, but once you get started it's quite absorbing.  If you're in the Burlington, VT area, Boutilier's on College St. is a good place to get supplies. This time of year they do frequent Ukrainian egg decorating demos. Also, learnpysanky.com has tons of info and free instructions.

 

Once you mix up the dyes, they last for several years as long as they're tightly sealed.  These are 4 years old.

 

Beeswax, matches, kistkas, egg-blowing tool.  I forgot to include a candle, which is what you use to heat the kistkas with so you can scoop up some wax.

 

Finished eggs: the two on the right are by me, and the beautiful cameo egg on the left was made and given to me by a friend.

I'm hoping to make more Eggbot eggs and Ukrainian eggs before Easter.  If I do, I'll be sure to share the results!