For this week’s CFFC – Things That Are Smooth I want to show you Pisanki – painted eggs – and tell you about this Easter tradition in Poland.
Let’s start with the name. Pisanka comes from a polish word that means “to write”, but in old polish also meant “to paint”. Pisanki then can be called “painted eggs”. They are mostly chicken eggs, although goose or duck eggs were also used.
There are many techniques of decorating Easter eggs. They vary depending on the region of Poland and its specific traditions and are very different from each other. The pisanki on my photograph, unfortunately, are not an example of any specific style. They are very colorful and include common Polish motifs, but are chiefly produced for tourists. 🙂
The simplest decorating method is to boil an egg in water to which various plants or other natural products have been added to achieve a specific color. Brown onion skins will produce a lovely light brown egg; tea will render it a darker brown. Marigold flower will leave a lovely yellow egg, mallow flower will give an egg a violet color, and beets will make it pink. More elaborate designs include painting a pattern with the hot wax on the egg first, then submerging it in its color bath. Since this technique can be dangerous when kids decorate their eggs, simple crayons work very well instead of hot wax. In my childhood I had often used crayons and onion skins for my eggs and I loved their warm, brown color.
A variation of the color method is to dunk the egg in its bath first and then when it is cooled scratch the design on it with a sharp tool. These required more attention to detail and were often done by artisans.
Other techniques include painting on the eggs, gluing small bits of colored paper on them to create a design, and also gluing long strips of yarn of various colors tightly around the whole egg.
For other polish traditions I invite you to visit Bridge Locks. For other artistic expressions look up Carved World of Galindia.
Sonia en Route 
It is a great tradition to paint eggs. I saw a documentary a couple of years back about the greatest artist in this gengre. It was very interesting and amazing what great art they made with wax and colour “baths”.
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Przepiękne pisanki! Od dziecka do pisanek mam ogromną słabość i dlatego przedkładam Wielkanoc nad Boże Narodzenie. Zresztą lubię nie tylko pisanki, ale i kraszanki czy jaja oklejane rdzeniem sitowia. Śliczne są też te we frywolitkowym kubraczku.
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Widze, ze wiesz o pisankach duzo wiecej ode mnie. Ciesze sie, ze ci sie podobaja. Te sa z Krakowa, z Sukiennic.
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They are so beautiful, what do you do with them after Easter?
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If they are real cooked and then dyed eggs – nothing. You can’t eat them – some of the dye gets to the inside. Those on the photo are not real eggs, so you keep them for next Easter 🙂
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Piękne pisanki. Gdzieś ty je wyłapała?
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Krakow, Sukiennice. Wiesz, ze tam mozna znalezc wszystko niezaleznie od pory roku 😉
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Such grand detail in those eggs. Thanks for playing.
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Congratulations! I have chosen this post to be featured on Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge.
http://ceenphotography.com/2016/02/23/cees-fun-foto-challenge-things-that-are-rough/
I sure hope you are having a great week.
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Wonderful 🙂 Thank you 🙂
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I also would like to tell you that Awa on the Road is my sister. She lives in Poland, I live in the US. Featuring us both is the best surprise you could have given us. Thank you so much 🙂
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That is so special. 😀 😀
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Very interesting info about the traditions and techniques of painting the eggs!
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