Pysanky- The Artful Easter Egg

My pysanky eggs are on display in the Castle's class sample glass case. They are being guarded by this lovely crepe paper bird made by Aimee Baldwin, who teaches a class on how to make this beautiful songbird basket.
The Castle's John McRae surprised me with a gift of goose eggs. I immediately set out and transformed them into Pysanky. Easter trees are traditional in Europe. You hang eggs as ornaments from branches. This is such a wonderful way to welcome spring.
From Indian Paisley to Dandelions and Feathers: I like to come up with patterns and images that are usually not associated with Easter eggs.
The wax-resist technique lends itself well to creating a dandelion or drawing the spidery lines of a peacock feather.




Making Pysanky eggs is a wonderful communal activity. It is one of these crafts that lend itself to sitting around a table with your family and friends busying yourself with embellishing your egg, while enjoying good conversation. I invited John McRae, my college and a talented teacher at Castle in the air over for a Pysanky afternoon. We enjoyed the relaxing afternoon, crafting together and exchanging ideas. John had earlier suprised me with a gift of goose eggs, which are so hard to come by. So naturally we were itching to transform a goose egg. It is double in size from a regular large chicken egg and gives you therefore a bigger canvas to work on. I love how John thought outside the box and embellished his goose egg with the image of an octopus. But then it must be actually no surprise that John had octopus on his mind,because he just recently created a fabulous one for his up-coming "Magical Octopus" class at the Castle.
John's Octopus Goose Egg