2014
I made many more different pysanky in 2014 than in 2013, and most were traditional folk designs taken from Elyjiw or Manko. The more I study them, the more I love our traditional patterns.
Included among these were tow “white” pysanky, done in the more traditional manner of etching back to a white surface, rather than of chemically bleaching the shell. Rather than using sauerkraut juice or vinegar, and my ancestors would have, I used “Acid Magic,” a buffered hydrochloric acid.
The pysanka with the yellow background was made using a yellow rinse; after the red dye was applied and the flowers written, the egg was place first in an orange rinse, to remove the red, and then in a jar of yellow dye, to remove the orange.
A particularly interesting design below is the Binyashevky pysanka. The design is from a set of cards photographed by Tanya Osadca (and otherwise unpublished). His version had one arm of the cross longer, as you would see in a christian cross/crucifix. The central motif of the pysanka looked clunky, with poor symmetry and odd proportions.
I changed it back to what I assume was thе original equilateral cross, and it looks much more aesthetically appropriate.
There are several brown egg pysanky in this collection; as always, these are my original designs. The ones below all have asymmetric designs, with upper and lower bands varying considerably.
