Pysanky Etching & Bleaching

I took some time to do more pysanky this weekend. I was really frustrated with the way our eggs took the dye last time, and not only because it was weak. It was also patchy, and we often have rings around the egg, from the rubbing of the shells in the factories. So I went rummaging the internet for tips, and found a new technique too.

• Yes, the egg must be room temperature, but don't try to help it along! No holding it, setting it in warm water etc, as that effects the shell.
• Oil from your hands can rub off on the egg, so make sure your hands are clean!
• One way to clean the eggs is let it sit in a water-vinegar mix for a while, but you have to turn the egg often to make sure all sides are being cleaned evenly. (I let mine sit in 1/2 c water and 2 tsp vinegar for an hour, as suggested, and it was too much. The dyes did take much better, but the shell was half-eaten away by the vinegar)

The new technique I read about is a combination of bleaching and etching. You wax a design on the egg as normal, and then bleach the background white. I used pure white vinegar, but many other solutions can be used.

Normally, as I said before, you dye the egg from the lightest to the darkest colors. This usually means that the background of the egg is very dark, and the small details are light. With this new technique, though, many new ideas are opened up! You can have a white background, or dip it in a pale color again, that wouldn't have shown up over the darks.

Interestingly, the acidic solutions used for bleaching break the shell down, so you get an etched effect. The waxed design ends up raised on the shell! Very neat. Jump over here to see some beautiful examples.

Now, I started an egg with a specific design in mind, and almost immediately made a mistake all over the egg that ruined my plan. I decided to keep making some design and use it as a test run for bleaching. It was great, and very fun to see the dye coming off the background. BUT when I started to melt the wax off, it stained the etched part of the eggshell. :( So I need to experiment more, because that didn't happen to the people online!

So I made a second egg, with the design I intended, and it went very quickly because I had already practiced the hardest parts! I did not think up this design, fyi, I'm not that good! Since the bleaching was iffy, and I liked this design so much, I went for the opposite effect and dyed it black. Can you see how I ruined the design on the first egg? It's subtle, but foundational...