Eggshell Carving
By admin on 2015-01-07

In Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties in China, people had the custom of presenting red eggs as a gift on weddings, birthday parties and child birth celebrations. At that time it prevailed even more in Beijing area with a considerable amount of egg consumption. Thus some people worked on the business of dyed red egg which is called the "color egg". Later, traders painted patterns on these eggs such as flowers and birds, fishes and insects and facial make-up for better sales. After years of evolution, the egg craft gradually improves. Nowadays, people may hollow the egg and carve exquisite patterns on the shell surface which finally forms a precious art with high appreciation value - eggshell carving.

Eggshell carving has a variety of crafts. One kind is to carve such patterns as figures, landscapes, birds and flowers on dark egg shell using burin with the formed patterns similar to the sketch or outline drawing; the other kind is to carve on thick duck or ostrich eggs with the method of bas-relief or hollow-out. The process of removal of egg liquid, disinfection and so on needs to be done after completing the eggshell carving. Due to fragileness, it is very difficult to carve on avian eggshell; hence eggshell carving products are not common in market.

Basic steps: selecting egg - drilling holes - cleaning – setting calibration line - carving – another cleaning – decorating

1. Egg selection: The egg shell of middle-aged chicken (bird) shall be selected for its sound physiological condition; therefore the egg shell has even thickness with smooth and bright appearance.

Eggshell processing: Before carving, first we have to extract liquid inside egg shell. This is done first to poke a hole at one end of the egg with impact force of burin and other sharp tools, and then turn the burin tip left and right for reaming. During reaming, gentle force should be used to avoid cracking the egg shell. When the egg hole is expanded to a certain extent, use clamp to clean excess egg shell along the edge of hole. When the egg hole is large enough to insert syringe, it could stop. Then with the egg in one hand, use the syringe to extract the egg liquid through the egg hole with the other. Be sure to make the egg hole downward for better extraction. Both hands need to cooperate with gentle force. Shake of the syringe tip is not allowed to avoid cracking the egg shell. Be extremely careful when pumping the egg yolk for its viscous nature. Improper processing may easily lead to eggshell crack.

Finally, fling to clear the remaining liquid inside the egg to complete the extraction of egg liquid. After the extraction, there still will be residues on the inner egg shell which may be decayed after a long period of time; therefore the egg shell needs to be cleaned with water. Extract water with the syringe and gently inject into the egg. Plug the egg hole with thumb, shake the egg up and down for cleansing, then extract the mixture with the syringe and fling to clear the remaining water. The second shell cleaning is still needed for better cleansing. After the second cleaning, the water is relatively clean. In the end, formalin solution is needed for disinfection of the inner shell wall. When all these procedures finish, we may start our creation on the shell.

2. Setting calibration line: Place the egg on the "calibration line device", draw the bisector and parallel line on the eggshell based on the design draft and then draw the detailed pattern according to the fixed position.

3. Carving: Use different tools. Eggshell carving tools are very simple mainly including the burin and shovel knife. Burin consists of oblique burin used for carving lines or details, small flat blade mainly used for carving details and corners, and large flat blade used for large size and rough carving; and shovel knife is used to level subface. Flexible combination of tools may be applied in actual use. Other tools include pencil, eraser, knife, whetstone, nicking tool, etc.

Carving forms: Eggshell carving boasts a great variety of forms and rich contents. You can carve characters, different flowers, various animals, and even figures on the shell if you are skilled enough. The carving techniques include positive carving, negative carving, line carving, etc.

4. Re-cleaning: In the cutting and carving process, stains are often produced on the eggshell surface, so re-cleaning is needed to cleanse the inner membrane of eggshell with steel brush.

5. Decoration: The processing method from inside to outside is adopted. The internal decoration should be performed first to avoid cracking during the complicated decoration process. The external decoration is subject to the pattern design to fix all kinds of gold thread, diamond, claw chain, beads, metal accessories, music bells, etc. according to the planned procedures. 6. As the shell itself is fragile which increases the production difficulties and reduces the success rate, each finished eggshell carving product is an exquisite artwork.