Tag Archives: Pysanky

P Is For… Pysanky!

Knoontime Knitting
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Egg decorated by A. Catherine Noon from a design in the Ukrainian Design Book by Perchyshyn et al. Image Copyright 2014 Everett C. Wilson. Used with Permission

I adore pysanky.  I talked about the legend about them on my main blog a couple weeks ago, here.  Today, I wanted to talk more about the craft of making them, since Knoontime Knitting is about the crafts.  I was first introduced to the art of pysanky, or Ukrainian decorated eggs, when I moved to Chicago back in 1998.  The art, however, has a history stretching back 5,000 years.  The tools are reminiscent of Bronze Age technology:  the kistka, which is used to draw on the egg with melted wax, is a simple metal funnel attached to a stick with wire.  The wax is typically beeswax.   The egg…

Well, we all know where eggs come from.

But which came first, the chicken or…

Come on, I couldn’t help myself.  ANYway, pysanky is a slow process, because you draw the designs on the egg, then put it in a dye bath, then draw some more, then dye, until the design is finished.  You’re not done there, however.  You then melt the wax from the egg, using either a candle and paper towel or a melting board and an oven.  I’ve only used the candle method, though I’m curious to try the oven method one of these days.

The designs themselves have ancient history too.  The design above, for example, represents bear claws.  The colors represent the mother goddess.  The red is actually supposed to be solid, but I like how the wax didn’t quite cover it all the way and there are flecks of black in it.

That’s what pysanky teaches you:  no matter how painstakingly you work, the pysanka always has the last word.  Part of the art is about acceptance, and another is about patience.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What have your hobbies taught you?

Pysanky Day Continued…

Knoontime Knitting
Figure 4: This is from Ukrainian Design Book 2, Egg 14. This is after the first dye bath, yellow. As you can see, the color is not very brilliant, which means I need to remix it.

Figure 5: Another view of the egg. The eggs are very wet after the dye bath. We use paper towels to blot the eggs and then let them air dry before adding more wax.

Figure 6: Another view of the egg with wax covering the first section of design. The red egg on the left is a finished egg. Three kistki are behind the yellow egg along with the beeswax.

Figure 7: This is from Ukrainian Design Book 1, Egg 1. It’s finished with the last dye bath, wax still in place. (I’ll show it once I take the wax off, but I’ll do that another day.)

Figure 8: Side view of egg. The yellow part is beeswax, as is the black. The blackened was is from the carbon from being melted. If you use an electric kistka, shaded wax is available since it won’t have the carbon.

Figure 9: This is Egg 2, Design Book 1. The design calls for purple, which I didn’t have made up, so I used Scarlet in the prior dye bath and then Royal Blue. When I took the egg out, it didn’t really blend with the Scarlet and now has dots of color, both Scarlet and Blue.
Figure 10: Side view of egg. The knitted balls in the background are for decorating a tree.
Figure 11: Design Book 1, Egg 3. This is the first dye bath, yellow, but as you can see from the picture the dye is very pale. I have a Gold dye as well that I may experiment with instead of the yellow.
Figure 12: Top view of egg. This is just the first dye bath. I’ll add more at the next time we decorate.
Figure 13: This is all of the eggs we decorated. Of the four yellow eggs, three of them are the Design 14 that we did together. The black, blue, and yellow are the ones from Design Book 1.

Pysanky Day!

Knoontime Knitting

This was the first Pysanky Day we’ve done for this year. We’ve got another one scheduled on April 14th since we didn’t finish.

Pysanky are traditional Ukrainian decorated eggs, a craft that has a 4,000 year history. I enjoy them because it’s a chance to play with something three-dimensional but using two-dimensional techniques – drawing and writing.

Essentially, you start the design on a clean egg in pencil. Then using a stylus called a kistka, melted wax is applied onto the egg. Successive dye baths add color, and using the wax-resist process, the design accumulates. When finished, the egg is covered in wax which is melted to reveal the design. Many artists then cover the egg with a polish to bring up the colors.

One of the cool things about this is that you start with a raw (uncooked) egg and just paint it. You don’t have to blow out the innards, though some artists do. I don’t, because it gives me a headache. After a few months, the egg will naturally dry out – no other preparation is required.

Figure 1: Applying wax to raw egg.
You can see the outline from the pencil under the stylus. The stylus is filled with wax and melted using a candle, then the melted wax is applied to the egg. It’s a little tricky to keep the stylus from dripping; I’ve found that if you only heat the tip then it melts more slowly and doesn’t goop.

Figure 2: Second view of wax application.

On the paper towel in front of the artist, you can see the yellow and black cake of beeswax used.

Figure 3: First dye bath, in this case yellow.
Eggs are left in the dye for ten to fifteen minutes. Dyes can be preserved from year to year, and remade when they don’t dye as brilliantly. My yellow was made three or four years ago and only now needs to be replaced.