My First Ukrainian Egg

I took a workshop tonight at CNM Community College with instructor Lynn Johnson to learn how to make Ukrainian Eggs. Too much fun!  This workshop was offered through the CNM Art Club, which I just discovered, and is a great resource. They have more workshops scheduled this summer, and you can bet I will be there!

To make the Ukrainian Eggs, you use beeswax as a resist to draw a design on the egg, and then dip into a dye to color the unwaxed areas.  Much like you would do when drawing with a white crayon on an Easter Egg. Then you add more wax over the areas that you want to keep the first color, and dip it again. Repeat the process until the egg is complete, and then carefully melt the wax off.  Pretty simple process, but it was difficult for me to get my lines straight! That will take some practice!

Here is the egg after doing yellow and brick dye dips:

And here again after I dipped into Turquoise, which became a very rich brown since it was dyed over the brick color.  These three pictures are different angles of the finished egg. Definitely something I would like to try again.  And the beeswax smells so good!