I go through phases with arts and crafts. A medium will be super shiny to me for a couple months and then I won't pick it up again for several years. Pysanky is a good example. It is a fascinating and beautiful art form. Part of its beauty lies in the delicate nature of the medium itself: a hollowed out eggshell. That's right, an egg!
Pysanky, also known as Ukrainian eggs, have religious meaning and Christian symbols woven into the design. I am not a religious person myself and can still appreciate the delicate art.
My family bought me the necessary equipment as a Christmas present (that's right, not for Easter!) while in college: dyes, beeswax, and a stylus. How does it all work? The dyes are straightforward...mixed with water and vinegar, just like you would do for dyeing Easter eggs. In order to make different colors and designs, beeswax is applied to the egg using your stylus (kistka). Each stylus may have a different size tip. The larger the tip, the bigger the flow of wax. This is what a stylus looks like:
You place a little bit of beeswax into the receptacle and melt carefully over a candle. It needs to be hot enough to melt the wax, but not so close to the flame that you burn the wax. Every area that is coated in beeswax will retain the underlying color. You dip the egg in dyes from dark to light (yellow, orange, red, green, etc) and apply wax after each dipping. Then all the wax is melted off and you are left with a beautiful, fragile design. Personally, I found the results with these styluses to be frustrating. It was hard to apply lines evenly to the egg, and the tube would often get clogged. This was about as detailed as I could get...
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| Pysanky made with a regular (non-electric) kistka |
I tried a few "for fun" designs for friends, including Penn State eggs for graduation. They made it all the way to State College safely, and then I tragically dropped the carton of them upon arriving at campus (doh!). Also attempted to make chocobo from Chocobo's Magic Picture Book. For some reason, the orange dye just did not want to take...disappointment.
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Penn State Pysanky
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| Chocobo...wark! |
The LearnPysanky website was a helpful resource to understand the basics.
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