I decided to decorate wooden crosses with similar designs as pisanki eggs. I drew on the bare wood with pencil first and then proceeded to burn the lines into the crosses using a woodburning tool. It has different types of points that become heated to a very high temperature and actually burn the lines in the wood. I colored one of the cross designs with permanent marker and then varnished the crosses to make them permanent.
Pisanki are made with melted beeswax that is applied to an egg shell (which has been blown out with a special egg blower). The first lines on the egg will be the color of the shell, which is then placed in the yellow dye and dried carefully. The next lines and shapes will be yellow, if you cover the yellow design with melted wax. Putting the egg shell in orange gives you a new color to work with in wax. Green may be added before the orange dye. The final color will be brown, blue, dark green, purple, or black. Finishing the process includes cleaning off the burned wax by carefully melting it in a candle flame and wiping with a tissue. A high gloss polyurethane makes the design permanent. These pisanki are 
very fragile and must be handled with care.
The second group of pisanki are Batik art and represent butterfly designs on the egg shells and done with beeswax and dye. With this method, I draw on the white or brown egg shell, which has been blown out to make it hollow. I draw lines lightly with pencil, (don't erase mistakes...just don't wax over them). I apply the melted beeswax by heating the pisak in a candle flame, scooping up some wax and drawing on the egg shell. Each dye bath is done after the wax, light colors to dark, until the whole egg is dyed and waxed. Then the wax is removed by touching close to the candle flame and wiping the melted wax with tissue. Varnishing is the final step, to make the eggs shiny.
1 comment:
LaReta
Ps The tea bag folding is beautiful too.