I made three pysanky this year: one each with curliques, triangles and circles. This post deals with the circle version. I did a couple of things differently than I have in the past: for one thing, I chose to color the eggs with Wilson cake decorating dyes (for the most part), with the hopes the dye would peel less and be more intense in color. I also forgot to dye the egg yellow before putting my first batch of patterns on it, which meant that the first pass yielded vary contrasty colors as a result.
Pysanky with food coloring. 15 and 16 april, 2006. Large chicken egg, cake decorating colors
The purple dye separated into red and and blue, at least in the water; attempting to get this effect deliberately, I mixed pink and golden yellow, and (surprise) got orange. C'est la vie.
Pysanky with food coloring. 15 and 16 april, 2006. Large chicken egg, cake decorating colors
Since the red looked more like a dark red orange, it's difficult to see the difference. And the pink is actually supposed to be purple, though it didn't set particularly well: soaking the eggs for a few seconds, as opposed for three minutes in each color, might leave more ‘uptake’ available for the later sequences. For some odd reason, the (green-based) black seemed to help set the purple a little, so I dipped the egg in that too. So there is a bit of purple, but not much... However, the remaining colors—yellow-orange, orange and pink—work together reasonably well. I put approximate a teaspoon of vinegar in each of the dyes (belatedly recalling that with aniline dyes, at least, this isn't supposed to be a good idea with some colors—red or yellow, I think...oh well), and who knows, maybe it helped. I made the dyes with“instant” hot water (that being handy), and I think this generally was a good decision.
At any rate, excepting for the place where I attempted to remove the wax with my fingernail, the colors didn't peel. Coming up: less felicitious color combinations, peeling color, and ideas for next time.
File created 20060416
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