Pysanky
-
Sheeptastic Egg
Today I have an egg I did a while back with the intention of gifting it to my LYS owner, but alas, it was not meant to be. It just turned out with too many mistakes. I ended up with some dye leakage underneath the wax for some reason – you can see it in the middle of the photo above. That pattern was supposed to mimic the look of a knitted fabric, but something happened somewhere along the way. Maybe my wax application hadn’t been thick enough (although my grandmother is able to use the thinnest lines I’ve ever seen and they stick through several dye baths), or… well,…
-
Gridtastic Egg
Another pysanka for you today. I’m not so pleased with the front of this one – it’s a little boring. I had some blobbing and sort of ran out of ideas about how to cover it up because I was concentrating so hard on the plan I had for the long band around the egg. As for that, I like the idea and think it came out alright, but next time I try it I’m definitely going to implement it differently – it turned into a huge pain in the ass, and I didn’t quite keep track of where I was putting what color like I should have. I’d also…
-
Pysanka Wednesday
Today I have an egg that I actually made last year, but never got around to sharing anywhere. Last year I didn’t really make enough eggs for my lines to fully even out, so a lot of the line work is a little wobbly and uneven – you can really see it in the close-up. Overall though, I’m fond of the design. Not too busy, but also not too simple. I also really like how the vine around the egg came out. The orange band through the middle of the vine was actually a mistake, but I ended up really liking it. Now if only my lines had been a…
-
Pysanky Friday
I finally got around to varnishing those pysanky I teased on instagram a ways back, and so today I have one of them to share with you in detail. I was still getting my sea-legs back on this batch, so you’ll notice that my lines aren’t all terribly straight. This particular egg (which I’m calling the “Big Vine” Egg) was actually the result of a catastrophic mistake – those massive vines on the side were NOT supposed to be that big. But that’s what happens when you’re not being attentive and get a big blorp of wax smack dab in the center of your egg. The top and bottom of…
-
What I’ve Been…
…planning: Pysanky designs. The easter season is over, yes, but I plan to keep making them year-round this year. I really need to start honing my skills and getting creative if I ever plan on using this to drum up some extra income. …working on: grading. And more grading. It’s crunch time, and of course, as I always do, I ended up planning tests and papers too close to one another. Every single semester I say to myself, “I’ll plan this out better next semester…” And I try – I really do try – but no matter what, somehow it never works out. Right now I’m plodding my way through…
-
Behind the Scenes
Sorry it’s been a bit quiet here; it’s been a bit crazy this past week thanks to the holiday, high school musical season (always a busy time for freelance musicians), and crunch time at school. But I promise there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled posts at the very least by Friday. Until then, here’s a quick peak at the pysanky I’ve been working on recently. I have a bunch finished and ready to share here a little bit later!
-
Breaking out the Pysanky Stuff
With Christmas and New Years over, we have settled into the bleak, grey, and multicolor lightless bit of winter here in the northeast. It’s been cold (like, below zero windchill and sometimes the temp itself cold), and dark, and honestly it can get depressing without the distraction of the Christmas lights. So to keep some color in my life for the next few months, I’m skipping ahead to the next holiday a bit early, and starting on my pysanky already. What are pysanky? They’re Ukrainian Easter Eggs, made using a resist-dye method that’s similar to batik, and they look something like this: These are some of my eggs from last…