Easter Egg Line Art

Have you read Rechenka’s Eggs? Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite authors/illustrators, and I love adding the non-traditional Easter story to our springtime book rotation.

Rechenka’s Eggs is a story about “Old Babushka” who is famous for her intricately painted Easter eggs. The vibrantly-detailed line illustrations capture a little piece of Russian culture as they tell about:

• rescuing the injured goose, Rechenka
• the miracle of the goose’s brilliantly colored eggs
• Babushka’s experience entering the goose eggs in the Easter Festival contest
• and a fun surprise Rechenka shares after her wing has healed.

During a recent bedtime story the kids and I were admiring the intricate designs Polacco painted when illustrating Babushka’s Easter Festival eggs and I immediately thought this book was the perfect inspiration for creating some Easter egg line art of our own. But not on real eggs of course–because let’s be real–kids!

Line: An Element of Art

“Line” is one of the basic elements of art and one even preschoolers are familiar with. Think back to math class and you’ll probably remember learning about different types of lines: segments, rays, and the good ole line. Then there are line relationships- parallel, perpendicular, intersecting. And after lines intersect you get into fun things like angles and shapes. Soooo much to go over when we talk about lines!

But it doesn’t have to be complicated. To start this Easter Egg Line Art project, I had a quick conversation with the kids. First I asked, “what is a line?” and we talked about all the things they knew about lines. And then we watched a YouTube video (several times, actually! The catchy tune had them asking for it over and over) to learn a few more things about lines, such as:

• Lines have length and width.
• Lines create movement and send our eyes in a direction.
• There are many, many kinds of lines such as: curved, wavy, zig-zag, etc.

We drew a few of these different lines together, and then I let them practice drawing their own lines by filling in boxes with various types of lines. (You could easily skip this step if your kids are already familiar with lines and don’t need the extra drawing practice.)

*Get the Practicing Lines printable here.*

Then once our brains were filled with line ideas it was time to draw our Easter Egg Line Art!

Supplies Needed:

• Egg Shape Printable or Blank Paper (we like thick card stock)
• Black Sharpies (or other fine-tipped markers . . . see note*)
• Crayons, markers, or colored pencils

Print or Draw an Egg Shape

Start by printing the egg-shape or draw a large egg shape on blank paper.

Fill the Egg Shape with Lines

Then use a Sharpie to fill in the egg shape with a variety of lines to create different patterns. Use swirly lines, zig-zags, curves, checkerboards, wavy lines, thick, thin, dotted lines etc. Be creative and have fun!

* A note about using Sharpies/markers instead of pencils: You can definitely do what you feel most comfortable with based on your kids’ age/abilities. But the reason I chose Sharpies for this project is because they create sharp, bold, dark lines. Pencils are great for some projects, but kids tend to draw a lot smaller with a pencil’s tiny line. And for this project, I didn’t want perfectionism–just an exercise in drawing different lines to create art.

Color Easter Egg Line Art, if desired

Once the egg shapes are filled with black lines you can display as is. Or go one step more to fill in the lines with crayon, marker, or colored pencil and create brilliant, colorful eggs just like Babushka and Rechenka’s eggs.

Want more book-related project ideas? Come join the free Facebook community “Keeping Life Creative with Books” where we’re chatting about creative ways to promote literacy and teach/learn through stories and some of the best children’s books.

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