Pages

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Pysanky 2012


It's Easter weekend and in my family that means it's time to write pysanky! Every Good Friday we have a huge egg decorating/baking/chocolate making party at my parents' place. Over the years, we've experimented with a variety of styles of egg decorating. Although we don't have any Ukrainian heritage, we've discovered the art of pysanky. It's a wax resist process where you write on the egg with a kistka, a tool that leaves a line of beeswax on your egg. I usually create the traditional designs but this year I wanted to try a quilting-based pattern. Here are our creations for 2012!

 This egg has tumbling blocks design which you're probably familiar with if you're a quilter! I used the step by step illustrations in the wonderful book Decorating Eggs: Exquisite Designs with Wax & Dye by Jane Pollak to create my egg.

 After the inital lines were applied. Ready for the first dye bath!

After the first dye bath, I applied wax to the diamonds to protect the light blue colour while dipping the egg into the dye again to get a darker blue. (sorry for the blurry photo!)

 My husband is a skilled pysanky writer as well and this year he went with chevrons, a very on-trend design.

He also made this striped egg. 

Have you ever tried pysanky? If you want to give it a try, I'd recommend Baba's Beeswax (based in Richmond, BC) for all the supplies you need. Did you decorate any eggs this week?

13 comments:

  1. We have not done any eggs this year. We made a bunch last year - mostly because I was going to be teaching a Gr8 art class where we were writing pysanky so I wanted to practice and make sure I knew what I was doing. :-) So much fun! Just ran out of time for it this year...

    Gorgeous eggs, by the way!

    ReplyDelete
  2. great eggs! It's been years since I've done eggs - I discovered pysanky through Canadian Living magazine many years ago, and ordered a how to kit. We had years of fun doing them. I loved the final step of melting all the wax off and revealing the design underneath. Happy Easter Holly!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow - your eggs are amazing!! Happy Easter, Holly!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love your egg. When I was a kid, we used to do a bunch of pysanky eggs and i loved it. i wonder if my mom has any of the tools anymore...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your tumbling blocks egg is amazing Holly! We just painted eggs with acrylic craft paints. More paint on children than on the eggs, as usual. Happy Easter!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I remember doing pysanky when I was younger; it is so much fun, and your eggs are beautiful! Happy Easter!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. So pretty and what a cool tradition to do with your family!!
    I hope you had a fun & happy Easter!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Beautifully done! So glad you're carrying on the tradition.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You are the master now! Wow! You should lead workshops :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. What the heck Holly?! That egg is incredible! I'm totally impressed!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Holly, I always enjoy reading your blog I would like to award you the Liebster Blog Award. The Liebster Blog award is presented to blogs that the presenter believes should be recognized. It is given to "small blogs" - those with fewer than 200 followers. Check out my blog for more details. Congratulations! :)

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails