Psanky style egg for Easter!
I made two psanky style eggs for Easter this year (the other one turned out ok but i haven’t gotten photos of it). I say psanky-style since its a non-traditional motif, but it still uses the same batik-like technique. Its not an original design (i spotted the design online somewhere) but i really loved it and wanted to try it. I think it probably took around 4 hours to do, using 3 dye colours. For those who don’t know about this technique, its a method of decorating using dyes and wax resist. You start with the palest colour you wish to use in your design, dye the egg, and then using a kistka filled will molten beeswax, you draw on that portion of the design. the wax protects the colour underneath (resists subsequent dye colours). You then dye the egg the next lightest colour (in this case, red), and do the same thing. My final dye bath was black. I chose not to have any white in my design but you can start drawing on the undyed egg if you wanted white. I used a pale pencil to sketch out the basic parts of the design and most of it came off in the end, but i can still see a few lines, unfortunately. When you’re finished, you then put the egg in the oven at very low heat and watch it closely – when the wax turns shiny and starts to drip off the egg, you pop it out and using paper towels, rub the chunks of melted wax off and use some of it to shine up the egg. Traditionally, you leave the eggs whole and let them dry out over time, but I’m always scared they break before they’ve dried out… the smell… You can see the pin hole on the top of the egg in one of the photos where shawn blew it out for me.
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