Sunday, March 30, 2014

Pysanky / Ukrainian Easter Egg Tutorial

I am by no means an expert at this and I apologize to all of the real Pysanky experts, heck I'm not even Ukrainian! 

So here we go.  A non Ukrainian Pysanky tutorial:


You will want your eggs at room temperature.  Wash eggs thoroughly and wipe with vinegar.   You can create your pattern with a light leaded pencil.  I use an elastic to try and keep my lines straight. 

You start with  the lightest color you want on the egg, which is usually white.  Everything you want to remain that color, cover with wax, using the kistka.  My wax is red colored so the wax is red on the egg!

 Then you dye the egg the next color working from light to dark, mine being yellow


 Wherever the wax is, the dye will not penetrate.  You keep going until you come to your darkest color which is usually black. 





 You end up with an egg covered with wax.  Now you remove the wax with the side of a candle flame. 
 With your egg close to the side of the flame, carefull melt the wax.  Wipe with a paper towel, repeat beside flame and wipe until wax is removed.
Oops,  I had trouble staying in the lines...blame it on the raspberry wine!

  I used a Dremel with a pointed carbide burr bit to create a small hole at each end of the egg.  Blow the contents into the sink or compost, as the egg insides are not useable. I rest my blown egg on a skewer poked in styrofoam and apply a coat of sealer. 
This one got two coats.

Shiny!!

 A doodad kind of gem is applied with hot glue to each end of the egg and it is placed in a fancy egg holder .

  And if you stand back, way back....it looks pretty good...right?
In fact you might say to yourself,
 "Self, she is totally Ukrainian!"

 Enjoy your perfect dust collector and Happy Easter.
Cheers!
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