the art of writing eggs

I am just learning to love so much about the Slavic region of the world and their rich heritage. The more I study about it, the more I just love their traditions and embroidery and everything else! Sometime last year, I discovered pysanky eggs - the traditional Ukranian Easter Egg. These eggs are beautiful!!! I have wanted to learn how to do them for as long as I discovered they existed! I was planning a trip to NYC to the Ukranian museum and their pysanky workshop but wasn't feeling great about it. Then I found out that a local church was having their own workshop and I signed up! Yesterday was a crazy day with church in the morning and pysanky in the afternoon but it was worth it.

Here are some pics to what pysanky (piss-un-kee) is supposed to look like!





There are some pretty complex designs and some simpler ones (as shown in the pics above) but all of them are just stunning. Here's my attempt at this ancient art.

First you start with a clean white egg. One that has been cleaned with water and vinegar. Then, you decide what pattern you want to create and apply wax where you want white lines to appear.

Then, you dip it in your first, next lightest color. In my case, I wanted it to be yellow. 

Next, you put wax everywhere you want the yellow to stay. See the pattern here? Like watercolor, you work from light to dark. Next you dip it in your next darkest color. In this case red. I didn't let it sit as long as I should have and it turned out more pinkish than I wanted but it still a good color. 

Then, you apply wax to all the spots that you want to stay red. If you are doing this correctly, most of the egg should be covered in wax by now. Finally, I dipped it in black as my final color. In the picture below you can see the egg all dyed but still covered in wax. It looks messy. And it is! 

Next, you melt the wax off the egg and then drain it (something I still need to do) and enjoy! I didn't do a great job on this egg...hey it's my first!!  

I didn't get the division correct or the lines around the middle straight or any number of things, but I had a blast doing it and I now know how to do it correctly. I also got all the tools and dyes I need to do this at home! I am hoping to do a bunch of eggs prior to Uprising so I can show them off as part of my display and give them away. That gives me until mid June to have some fun! 

I did buy an 18-count carton of eggs today in hopes that I can find some time this week to do another, simpler egg. Here's to optimism!! :)