Friday, April 15, 2011

More Eggs


More Eggs! 
 
I thought I’d share some more Ukrainian eggs with you, from Carolyn Trout.  Above, a sample of her work, as well as below.  Carolyn explains the process:
This is a hobby for me. I do not sell eggs, but I do give them away as gifts, to charity auctions, etc. I’ve been doing this for about 30 years, more or less. These eggs are Pysanky, Ukrainian Easter eggs. The process is a wax resist process, exactly like batik, only on egg shells instead of on fabric. They are not painted, but dyed.
The process requires successive steps of drawing with hot beeswax on the egg shell and then dyeing in increasingly dark colors, until the final color, after which all the wax is melted off to reveal the pattern underneath.  I’m not Ukrainian by birth or culture, but I do use many of the traditional patterns, some of which are thousands of years old. If you Google ‘pysanky’ or ‘pysanka’ (the singular form) you will find tons and tons of information. I learned to do this when my husband gave me a kit for Christmas many years ago. He had no idea that he was starting an obsession and that he was going to lose his wife to the siren call of the dyed egg.”

Happy Spring everyone; enjoy the eggs.
Diane

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow those are really stunning. Very intricate.

Terri said...

Absolutely beautiful! It always amazes me the beauty that can be created using humble items... like quilts. Thank you for sharing them, they are inspiring.

Barb said...

Those eggs are just beautiful. I have an egg that someone made up for me, maybe I will share it?

Kay Lynne said...

Carolyn's eggs are really beautiful in real life! Her husband is equally talented inlaid wood game boards!

Linda said...

These are gorgeous! When I taught school we had a lady come in and demo this for the kids. It's quite a process, but the results are amazing!

Diane Gaudynski said...

Kay Lynne, thanks for sending me the photos of Caryolyn's work and asking her to share. The eggs are so very beautiful.

And Barb, yes, send me a photo if you have one!

Mary Ann said...

Absolutely lovely!

Michele said...

Thank you for sharing! Lovely!