Every year for many years Ellen and I have colored Easter eggs at Ellen’s sister Ann’s house. These are the eggs we made this year. The egg artists were Ann, her husband Dave, our friend Tim, Ellen and I. Each year a judge is chosen to award winners in a number of categories. Ann’s daughter Ina was the judge this year since she wasn’t able to join us for the coloring. At the end of this article I will link to some previous years’ articles which have some how-to examples, but over a lifetime of doing this, we’ve figured out some techniques and tricks. For instance, the geometric shapes are done with tape, either Scotch magic tape or masking tape. This year Tim also tried black electrical tape, and on one egg above it’s still on the eggs, making for a cool black and green pattern. We decided he had to remove the tape for the judging, though. Thin lines of various kinds are made with the wax crayons that come with the Paas egg coloring kits. Thicker lines are done with rubber bands. Dark colors are the result of multiple color dipping, and to get more intense colors we double the color tablets and vinegar. Here are the award winners chosen by Ina.

Tim’s black tape egg minus the tape won Most Abstract.

This egg also by Tim won Most Beautiful. The long triangles were also made with the electrical tape.

Ann was the winner of Most Colorful.

Ann also won Most Creative with this one combining tape triangles and crayon circles.

My egg with very subtle pastel colors that don’t show up very well here won E for Effort.

My egg using tape, wax crayon and black crayon won Funniest.

This egg by me won Technical Achievement.

This egg by Dave won Most Traditional.

Dave’s Super-Rabbit won Most Unusual.

Finally, the Judge’s Choice award went to this one by Ellen

That’s the egg report for this year!