We all know what typical Easter eggs look like: sort of monochromatic pastel eggs, maybe with stickers on them to spice things up a little bit. But we also all know what type of Easter egg we really want: those gorgeous, Eastern European style decorated eggs that have those beautiful intricate designs and fantastic colors. You want those stunning eggs that can be brought out year after year after year, and that look like they are in a museum. Well, you don’t have to settle for the same Easter eggs that you’ve been making since you were three-years old. Follow these easy and simple instructions to create truly stunning pysanky Easter eggs.
The term pysanky comes from the verb which means to write, since when you create pysanky Easter eggs you are using a stylus to write with wax all over the egg shell. When you create pysanky Easter eggs, you begin with the lightest color that you want to be on the egg. So, everything that you decide that you want to be white, you need to cover with wax using your stylus. Then you dye your egg, say, yellow. Then all of the spots that need to remain white will stay white. Then, once you have a pysanky egg that is dyed yellow, you have to cover with wax all of the parts of the egg that you want to stay yellow. After marking all of those areas, you need to dye the egg in the next darkest color, say light green. Then, on your light green egg, you cover with wax all of the parts of the egg that need to remain light green. You progressively move to darker and darker colors, layering wax on the entire time. Then you use a candle flame to melt away all of the wax, and you end up seeing a truly stunning egg with an incredibly intricate and amazing design.
Obviously, the very first step to making a pysanky egg is to come up with a design so that you’re not wondering in the middle of designing exactly what your next step needs to be.
Basic steps for creating pysanky Easter eggs
1. Gather your supplies. Before you even think about starting to decorate a pysanky Easter egg, you need to get your supplies ready. You will want to purchase real pysanky Easter egg supplies, rather than substituting those supplies with your regular run-of-the-mill craft store Easter egg materials and food coloring based dyes.
2. After you have gathered all of your supplies, you will need to sit down and read through all of the steps that you will have to go through in order to create your particular design on this particular pysanky Easter egg. You will want to ensure that you clarify any difficulties that you have understanding any of the instructions before you actually begin creating your pysanky Easter egg masterpiece. Think of approaching the instructions for creating a pysanky Easter egg like creating a recipe: you want to read through the entire recipe in order to ensure that you have all of the ingredients, you have all of the necessary pots and pans, and you know how to julienne a zucchini before you realize that you have approximately two minutes to julienne an entire zucchini and you don’t even have a julienne machine and you don’t even know what it means to julienne.
In other words: figure out how to make the egg before you actually begin working on it.
3. Finally, choose a design! There are numerous books of pysanky Easter egg designs that you can find, and lots of websites that offer detailed designs and instructions for pysanky Easter eggs.
