An oyster plate full of pysanky from New Zealand (2007)

Pysanky from New Zealand

Evan Lewis from Torbay, New Zealand has taught himself pysankarstvo from reading the UGS books and perusing sites like mine (or so he says).  He suspects he may be the only pysanka artist in the entire country, and has to order all of his supplies from abroad.

Evan has been taking fairly traditional designs and adapting many of them to a blue color palette. Blue pysanky (or even pysanky with blue areas of design) were fairly uncommon in traditional pysankarstvo, as blue dyes were hard to make.  Modern aniline dyes have allowed us to greatly expand the color palette of pysanky.

He’s made some lovely pysanky, photos of which he has shared with me, and has allowed me to share with you.  These are some of his pysanka photos.   He notes that white eggs are hard to obtain in New Zealand, as in much of the world, making them all the more precious.  He also works on goose eggs.

Evan’s interests include writing icons; you can see a sample of his work in the fourth photo below.

If you would like to contact Evan directly, you can do so at this address.

(Note: I’ve added some new photos to this page, at the bottom.  Evan has a new photo of his blue-only pysanky, along with a few others to show he does use a fuller palette at times.)

A bowl of goose egg pysanky (2006) 

Pysanky made from antipodean chicken egg pysanky (2006)

A closer view of the chicken egg pysanky (2006)

Pysanky and icon (February 2007)

Pysanky on the green grass of a New Zealand spring (November 2007)

A bowl of blue and white pysanky (January 2008)

A mix of traditional and more personal designs (January 2008)

Several bowls of more colorful pysanky (March 2008)