This year, state didn’t lay egg

WASHINGTON -- Last year, Nevada's decorated egg for the annual White House Easter display was created by a Californian after sponsors could not arrange for a local artist.

The same problem almost hatched again this year, until Phyllis Mignard of Las Vegas stepped up.

Until she offered to design an Easter egg being displayed this week for tourists in the nation's capital, Mignard never had painted an egg, never mind doing so to the exacting standards of top eggshell artists.

"The first dozen were destroyed. That gives you an idea it takes you awhile. There was a lot of trial and error involved," said Mignard, a childrens' illustrator and retired graphic artist who worked for the Clark County libraries.

Mignard went through more than a carton of eggs before she felt comfortable with the technique. She punctured the shell with a tiny drill, drained the white and the yolk and dried it in a heated oven so it wouldn't stink. Then she applied three coats of gesso primer, carefully sanding the egg smooth between each coat, and sealed it with lacquer.

Mignard created illustrations of the state bird, the state flower and the state reptile. She scanned them into a computer, shrunk them to postage stamp size and printed them onto decals. The desert tortoise, a pair of mountain bluebirds and clumps of sagebrush thus were applied to the shell. Using acrylic paint, she added leafy designs to complete the egg.

"This was a fun project," Mignard said. "It was a great way to think out of the box."

Along with eggs from the other states and the District of Columbia, the Nevada egg is on display at the White House Visitor Center. They can be viewed online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/easter/2008/eggsbystate/.

Mignard volunteered to produce the egg after seeing a newsletter notice sent out by the Nevada Arts Council in September.

Even though it was past the deadline, she wrote to the American Egg Council that organizes the Easter display for the White House.

To her surprise, she was given the go-ahead.

Mignard likely bailed out the council, which had some egg on its face last year when the Nevada Easter offering was created by a California woman. That ruffled some feathers among Silver State artists.

Even more, artists and officials in Wyoming were up in arms when they discovered their state Easter egg was created by the son of an egg board staffer from Illinois and paled in quality to the others on display.