Pysanky Time Again!
Back to the Marian Centre for one of my favourite activities…..Pysanky designing!
Our Madonna House friends are so very generous to me. They allow me to enter their home and use all of their equipment : pre-blown out eggs, dyes, candles, matches, Kitskas, paper towels, wax, and books to inspire.
Usually they have an entire large table with place settings for about 6 people to work on their eggs. But times have changed and today I was the only one there with a table set up for 3!
I find it SO relaxing to put on a C.D. , choose the design and size of egg, and then spend the next few hours working on the wax and dye painting.
I always joke with Terry that he should join me and do one too ( he did one once) and he always makes a symbol like he wants to kill himself….ha ha.
I chose a goose egg this day and a lovely fish design. The fish symbol is very common in many pysanka designs.
In pre-Christian times, a fish represented health.
After the advent of Christianity in Ukraine in 988, the fish was reinterpreted as a symbol for Christ. While the interpretations of some symbols have changed, the message behind the eggs has remained the same: love and goodness triumph over evil. (Google)
One starts off with dividing the egg into quadrants with pencil lines. I do this freehand but many people use elastics or string to help get the lines even for tracing.
The book I used that day gave me step by step instructions of which lines to draw and in what order. I was surprised how confusing it was but my friend, Dina, helped me understand what I was looking at. After the initial drawing it’s time to light your candle and fill the kitska (see the medium blue, large red, and smallest white above) with wax to be heated up for plugging the hole and then for drawing. Once that is completed I clean the egg in vinegar and then gently pop it into the yellow dye. One always goes from lightest to darkest colours. Every colour you want to save must be covered by wax before you go to the next colour.
It’s a painstaking process but the final reveal of all the colours after the wax is melted off is like Christ’s resurrection from darkness (to quote Dina).
P.S. I didn’t quite seal op the hole in the first egg and the dye started pouring out the bottom so I had to quit and let it dry out for a few days. This is another lesson in patience.
And those are my two “fish” themed goose eggs!
May peace find its way back to the Ukraine.