The eggs of my people! I’ve tried making pysanky myself a few times – the stylus, the beeswax, the candle flame, oh my! – and I am in awe of the patience and the steadiness of hand it takes.
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#easter #spring #art #crafts #pysanky #my lifeSo I ended up not doing pysanky this year - after three migraines this week I didn’t feel up to fine work by hand or eye. But I could still try out this cool tutorial on egg dyeing with onion skins!
I didn’t have any flowers, leaves, or feathers (plan ahead next year!) so I took small pieces of onion skin and patchworked them onto the egg using water to help them adhere. Then I took one or two large skins and wrapped them totally around the egg, then wrapped it up with thread. There were enough large pieces for six eggs so I just put the last four in the pot plain. Added water and the rest of the onion skins and boiled them up. After cooling and unwrapping them I gave them a quick rub with vegetable oil for a little shine.
Tomorrow I’ll take them to an Easter party/gaming day get-together to be admired. Then I’ll peel ‘em all and make deviled eggs. I make fabulous deviled eggs. Mmmmm, deviled eggs.
I’ve been planning to do some pysanky (with my shaky hands!) this year. Think I’ll try this method, too. Not on the same ones, though. You generally do onion dyeing by boiling the eggs with the skins and that would ruin the wax on the pysanky. Or I could boil the eggs first then leave the decorated eggs in an already-prepared onion dye bath overnight. Experimentation is in order! It should be amusing at any rate.
My new pysanky eggs came so I thought I’d share a snap of the collection. The “matryoshka” style one on the lower right is my favorite.
Born to be wild
The lady on the scooter was an artist named Szabó Éva (sadly she passed away 4 years ago). She decorated the scooter herself, and as far as I know she could have embroidered the dress herself too, as she was absolutely skilled at the craft and often gave away tapestries to churches.
She worked on cars too (as well as easter eggs, besides teaching folk dance):
She learned the art of Kalocsa patterns from her mother and she believed in keeping the folk motifs alive so passionately that she reportedly told she’d paint an entire house or airplane kalocsai if anyone asked her.
Hungarian art
Ideas for next year. Attaching paper or fabric to blown, foam, or wooden eggs is fairly self-explanitory; the silhouette tutorial and the paper strip tutorial should fill in the blanks.
@copperbadge I know this is your jam.
It is, and these are beautiful! I really do need to buy a display case so that I can put my eggs (which are mostly wooden but done in the pysanky wax-resist style) back on display in their glass vase.
[Description: several images of eggs (they look like probably mostly goose eggs) painted with elaborate designs and patterns, including several with birds, a few with abstract foliate patterns, one with a hare, one with a fox, and one with a beetle; the bottom-most image is a close-up of design work on what appears to be an image of a moth or other flying insect.]
