1) Bring raw eggs to room temperature. The wax will not adhere correctly to a cold egg.
6) Apply a pattern on the white egg, dipping the pin in flame and wax prior to each stroke. You may use a rubber band around the egg to help you make straight lines or partition the egg into a pattern. 11) Pat dry. And continue adding molten wax to egg pattern covering
only where you want the orange to show through. Many symbols have meanings: 12) Follow this technique with each subsequent color:
red, blue, purple and black dyes. Note: Start with lighter colors and proceed
to darker colors or wash off dark colors with mild soap
and water before immersing into lighter colors. The wax on
the egg will protect the color underneath.
Ukrainian-Americans still pride themselves on their skill in creating
pysanky and the ancient art is still practiced and displayed where Ukrainians
reside in San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pennsylvania, New York and throughout
Canada.
The Ukrainian Egg Lady has the prettiest, most perfect pysanky
for only $10 plus shipping. You can contact her directly at:
The Ukrainian Egg Lady - Maria Chupa
Krashanky Patricia Taylor
Hello Olga:
Anyway, Easter is always my most favorite holiday. because after all of Lent and no meat/cheese Fridays, then the Holy Friday, Saturday, and fasting. But Sunday after Mass, you're always starved for that keilbasi right? I know I am. I love the hardboiled eggs, with vinegar, salt, pepper, or red beets. Oh yes, and horseradish on eggs. Paska too.
Krashanky The other way I like to do eggs is like my grandmother Landis
did. We would use onion skins, brown and purple, and come up with beautiful eggs
that way too. You wrap each egg in a little cheesecloth bundle and drop into
boiled peels. It makes a good partner to the pysanky art eggs...simple and elegant.
About the straight lines on the eggs, I used to use a rubber band around them.
Before I blew them out, I marked with pencil and it's a fairly good guide line.
Nobody ever said Pysanky were to be perfect anyway...like life, nothing is
perfect. I like dark blues and blacks in background, then to green, red, yellow
and finally white. It is kind of like a game of chess -- you must think a few
steps ahead when coloring. My favorite part was at the end, where you finally
melt off all the wax (by then the eggs pretty ugly, covered with colors and
wax, like a black blob, right?) and then, MAGIC!! You hold it over a candle
and slowly, so slowly melt the dirty wax with all its dyes, and underneath
you never quite know what you'll get, but they are always wonderful, yes???
Valerie L. Landis
Ol'ha: Oleh
Dear Olga,
I mostly do it for fun and to keep the old traditions alive by passing it on
to my children. I learned to decorate eggs from my granny and every year the
kids and I make some. I have shared the joy of pysanky with other children
in our schools, Girl Scouts and other organizations. It was unheard of down
south here in Mississippi when I moved down 11 1/2 yrs ago but amazingly it
is picking up popularity. I've met several women down here who got interested
just for the sheer fun, neither of them are of Slavic origin. They are also
teaching the art of pysanky to others, which I think is so wonderful.
I just looked at my eggs today and found the only one that I did not blow out
last year had burst. It explains the rotten odor in my family room last week
when my daughter was sick. I blamed her, poor kid! The rotten egg was slightly
cracked and leaked out its smelly innards onto another non blown out egg. The
other egg is quite old which, by luck, seemed to dry out inside like the way
they are really supposed to.
Living down south here has had its challenges with temperature fluctuations in the winter when we are stuck between heating and air conditioning and just trying to keep the humidity levels down too. Happily decorating, Shawn P.
Your pysanky material is beautiful (as is your whole website). Yeah, my grandmother did this, and used the Lemko drop-and-drag method. She would melt wax in a jar lid on the stove-a wood/coal stove in my earliest years-and stick a pin in a twig she'd cut off a tree. I can still smell the hot wax. Ah, memories. Norman Zukowsky
Your website is very nice. I just loved it. My grandma was Ukrainian
and I always loved the beautiful Easter eggs the ladies at church use to make
and sell. Brought back fond memories.
Regards, Dolores Brown
Dear Olga, Wow! You have done so much work on your wonderful site. My babcha taught me to do pysanky when I was just a little girl. We made our own kiska with dowels and copper sheet metal! Now I use an electric kiska!! I am teaching my children to make them. Helena Agnew
A traditional Ukrainian custom on Easter Day is exchanging highly ornamental
Easter eggs, called pysanky (from the Ukrainian word pysaty which
means to write).
The Ukrainians bring their pysanky and other traditional food delicacies
in baskets to church for blessing and thanksgiving prayers.
Then they are exchanged with family and friends during festive banquets with the customary greeting "Christ is Risen."
Originally pysanky were associated with mythical and religious beliefs
of pagan times but with the coming of Christianity, they took on new meaning
of rebirth and life. Custom dictates that each year a fresh batch of Pysanky
be made: symbolic patterns now give way to intricate embroidery-style patterns
and flowers.
Here's how this ancient craft is done:
I like to put them in the oven until they are slightly warm. You can use a
crock pot on low setting. Some commercially-cleaned eggs leave stripes
when you dye them. You might try a vinegar bath before you warm them. 
2) Make dye baths of various colors. A teaspoon of vinegar may be added to the color baths to set the colors or buy setting powder.
3) Melt beeswax or white candle wax over a continuous low heat.
4) Use a straight pin or nail attached to the blunt end of a pencil to achieve
the "drop-pull" method.
Professional styluses come in various size nozzles. Don't be mistaken to think
that a professionally manufactured stylus is any better than your own homemade
version. The old-fashioned way was to shape a little cup out of brass and attach
it to a twig.
The tweezer on the right give me very even, narrow straight lines. The stainless steel metal keeps the tip hot and the wax flowing evenly, but it doesn't burn my hand.
5) Heat the stylus or pin head in the flame before dipping in the molten wax. The starburst shown on the black egg is done with "drop-pull" method that is unique to the Lemko people. 
9) Dip stylus in molten wax and continue the pattern covering only where you
want the yellow to remain. The wax will protect that stroke. 
10) Submerge completely in the orange bath for 15 minutes.
• Ribbons or belts - the endless line of eternity;
• Fish - Christianity;
• Sun - good fortune;
• Leaf or flower - life and growth;
• Grapevines
- good fruits of the Christian life;
• Pine needles - youth and health;
• Wheat - wealth & prosperity;
• Rams' horns.
Use a paint brush to add green leaves without immersing--then
cover the green leaves with wax. Green wants to contaminate
the other colors. 
14) Some people carefully scrape off all wax with a blunt knife but I find this leaves scratches on my die. A faster way is to hold waxy egg over candle or stove top flame to melt it and wipe repeatedly. 
You can place it in a 250° oven and when it begins to shine, remove it and
wipe off the wax. If you forget or have the oven too high, (on the right) you'll
hard boil your egg and won't be able to blow its contents out.
The multiple-colored pattern will remain after the wax is wiped clean.
15) Gently shake the egg so its inner contents loosen from the walls. Some people use a wire to "scramble" the egg inside the shell to make it easier to blow out the fluid. 
If you don't have a hole punch, you can use a needle or nail.
17) Blow through the small hole allowing the raw egg to come out of the larger hold. Pat dry so that the raw egg doesn't spoil your colors around the holes. 
Much simpler is this one-hole blower, called a Blas-fix. It
extracts the egg yolk using water pressure. Do it slowly. Too much pressure,
howevr, will shatter the shell.
Some people don't want a hole in their egg. and will let it rot inside
until it is completely gone. Just don't crack the egg until then or
you'll have a putrid smell. You can varnish them after they are done
to strengthen the walls and protect the dyes.
18) Your pysanky are ready for presentation. Practice with food quality dyes.
When you become an expert at handling the stylus and applying the wax, you'll
want to buy permanent, unedible dyes which give you deep, saturated colors on
the solid areas of your pattern. You'll then select the most perfect egg for
your work of art. No two pysankys are ever the same. Here are some lovely intricate
patterns to practice with.
Olga and Olga
Tel: 626-282-9500
e-mail: info@theukrainianegglady.com
Website: www.theukrainianegglady.com
Emails from pysanky lovers:
My Geordie mother used to have us make our own Easter eggs. First, we saved masses of the brown layers off onions. Next, they were wrapped around fresh eggs and then covered with a piece of cloth which was then stitched to keep everything in place. When several eggs were thus prepared, they were boiled slowly to avoid cracking. Left to cool, they were then snipped out with scissors to reveal the egg inside. After this treatment, the eggs were dyed with the golden, yellow and brown shades of the onion "husks"giving them a marbled effect. Easy to do and attractive to give to people for Easter.
Thank you for your offer to show my pysanky. You know what though, when I moved
out here to Arizona, I left my dear Mom in custody of the Pysanky, knowing
my life can get a little topsy turvy sometimes and being afraid I'd break them.
So every Easter, mom puts together a beautiful Easter tree with the eggs.
Well done page . . . it took less then 10 seconds to download the whole thing.
. .mind you - I am on cable . . .I would suggest using a SYRINGE to empty the
egg, . . . I have been doing it with the syringe for years . . .
I think it will be just fine if you'd like to include this on your web page. Kinda tickles me pink. What I will do eventually is photograph some of my eggs.
| Pysanky class at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Newhall CA, 2008 | ||
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| 28 people showed up for our pysanky class. | Dyeing eggs after applying wax. | Barbara Wampole & Olga Kaczmar, teachers of this ancient technique. |
Jim Walker's pysanky article in The Signal newspaper 2008 http://newmedia.the-signal.com/news/article/628/ |
||
Incredible what they can do with an eggshell and a laser beam. Hope you enjoy these as much as I did!
2/2/05 Hi Olga,
You might like to know that the eggs you have featured on this website with under this caption were NOT done with a laser, but even more amazingly . . . they were carved with dental drill (or something very similar). It truly is incredible what can be created from eggshells (with some imagination and a steady hand). Unfortunately we have lost contact with the eggshell artist who created most (perhaps all) of those eggs featured on your site. His website is no longer active and we have been unable to locate a new one. I can send you info/websites of many other artists with similar talents if you wish. Cordially, Teena Billingham, TeenaKaty@aol.com
Will the true artist please step up and identify himself so that we can sign give credit where credit is due.
Dear Olga,
I came across your pysanka page (I have been learning how to make them at a Ukrainian church in my area). I saw the beautiful carved eggs at the bottom of the page and I think I may know who did them (or at least where they're from), because my mother came across very similar work when researching our Slovene Easter egg traditions. The leftmost one in particular looks just like eggs carved by Franc Grom, and that style of carving out eggs has been done for many years in a few parts of Slovenia (and because he can use a delicate drill, he can do even more - it was all done by hand historically!). One of the regions that does this is the lacemaking region Idrija, and looking at some of Franc Grom's work, you can see it resembles lace patterns a lot. I can't be sure that this is the same artist, but it is a clue.
Here are some links showing his work:
http://www.vrhnika.si/index.php?m=knjiga&id=111
http://www.ragandbone.com/blog/?p=710
http://momeld.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/happy-easter-eggs/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0414_060414_easter.html
Thanks for a helpful site, and have a great day!
~Nadja
Other excellent sites to visit are
Ukraine-Europe pysanky page some very unusual ones, text in French http://www.ukraine-europe.info/ua/galerie2.asp
Ann Morash's http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/amorash/ukregg.html
Miwako Kishimoto http://www6.shizuokanet.ne.jp/kishimh/EGGworld/mkegge.htm
Georgia Sawhook http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/5892/Pysanky.html
Crafts http://rubyglen.com/cgi2/cgi/search.cgi?query=crafts
Vyshyvanka: http://vyshyvanka.com/Pysanky-Eggs
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