The Story of K and A: The Time Eggs Became Art

For Easter, one of A's classmates continued a tradition she began last year: having people over to paint Ukrainian Easter eggs. Last year we were both fooled by how simple it sounded. This is not your standard Easter egg project!

First you have to empty out a raw egg. You can do this by one of two methods. The old-fashioned way is to make a hole in each end and blow out the insides. It's very tiring and time-consuming. The easier method is to use a neat tool a very intelligent person invented which effectively blows air into the egg at one end.

Once your egg is hollowed out, you sketch out your design in pencil.

Then you begin dyeing your egg. The trick is to dye the egg in order of colors from lightest to darkest. For example, I dyed my egg: Yellow > Light Green > Red > Black.

You cover up with wax any area that you wish to keep the current color of the egg. As I wanted the chick to be yellow, I waxed it over, then dyed the egg green for the next step.

You can see the wax tools in the picture above. You scoop out a chunk of wax from a block with one end, then heat the tool in a candle flame to melt the wax which drips out a pointed tip. There are three sizes of tips, which help you make finer or thicker lines. (If you're that good, of course!) So the method continues: You wax over any areas you wish to keep that color, then dye the egg the next darkest color on your list. Once you've finished the dyeing and waxing process, you melt the wax off the egg.