LAST WEEKS’ LITHUANIAN EGGS

It’s been rather difficult for me to find inspiration for eggs, with war and all that looming the background, so I’m glad that “Pysanky Toronto 2023” that’s starting in a few days has forced me to make some for the Lithuanian eggs workshop I’m teaching there.

All of these are attempts to copy traditional Lithuanian patterns, for some of them there are several takes of the same pattern. 

There were three yellow dyes: apple wood chips (that I’ve never tried before, but that seems to be one the the most traditional yellow dyes in Ukraine), dyer’s chamomile, and some of our home grown last year’s coreopsis. Of the reds there was an old cochineal extract dye, which I’m surprised still worked, and I cannot remember when I made it, must have been for the natural dyes for Ukraine fundraiser last year. The second red dye was sappan wood which this time didn’t cooperate too well neither in the wood chips, nor in the extract form. All dyes were with alum, and the two greenish eggs were dipped into iron water after the yellow dye.

I will probably make another post or a couple eventually, showcasing at least the apple chips, but maybe other dyes individually as well.

I’m starting a new page in my egg adventures in September, so there will most likely be more frequent posts, in fact, I will probably add a personal blog page somewhere here to document my other-than-egg explorations and experiences.

Kharkiv Collection – 1

I love the album with the Easter egg collection from the Kharkiv Historical Museum. This collection was started by Sumtsov, and at this point I won’t say anything more about the collection itself, not to draw any unwanted attention. I tried to semi-replicate one of the eggs in this collection, you can see in on the page right under my egg, what I love in particular about this publication is that they have included both the photo of the original egg, and of the contemporary replica side by side.

The dye I used for this egg was made from maiwa cochineal extract with alum. I’m not posting the recipe here because I’m not particularly happy with the outcome. I’ll have to play with the versions of the recipe more, and will post one in the future once I got what I like. Part of the thing I’m not happy about is the amount of grey tone in the color, as opposed to pure or brighter pink or wine color. I know it’s possible to achieve shades more in tune with the color of some of the original eggs in this album from cochineal, because I did happen to succeed in past :). If I do this egg again, I would also make the segments of the egg less elongated at the base of the plant motif, and possibly the tip of the plant more round.

We don’t know where exactly was this egg is from, it is possible that someone at the museum (or someone else more knowledgeable than me) would be able to either provide more info, or to theorize about it, or to make an educated guess. Some texts that accompany the images in the album suggest that the specific information on the geographic origins of the eggs has been lost, though they do provide the more general account of places whether the eggs in the collection could be coming from. However, there are quite a few of these pink-purplish color eggs in this particular collection, and I haven’t really seen this color combination in such a large number in other traditional collections. Something to be explored.

Extracts: Coreopsis, Cochineal, Logwood

After a long pause, I’m restarting experiments with natural dyes on eggs. Gratitude for a push to start now instead of waiting longer goes to two different initiatives, the first one being “Pysanky for Ukraine” – an amazing group of egg artists have been getting together every year on April 1st to write some pysanky. These are the eggs I have managed to start while being online with other 100+ eggers. The second occasion for restarting the eggs is the fundraiser Natural Dyers & Printers for Ukraine in which I have been invited to do a Q&A on egg batik. Since I will be answering questions, and will probably need to record a bit of a demo in advance, I might as well get my hands dirty :). Jokes aside, I am extremely grateful and humbled by the wonderful people and the amount of their love of the art(s), knowledge, experience, hard work, and the resulting expertise.

In these eggs, the left drop-pull is dyed with cochineal extract with alum, the right one with logwood extract with alum, and in the middle non-drop-pool egg, the first yellow layer is coreopsis extract with alum, then a quick vinegar etch back to white, then cochineal with alum for those light purple/lilac spots and the final background is the same cochineal with a dip into iron water.

Logwood chips

I have tried logwood essence in the past and was not overly happy with it – it only gave black, was prone to “caking” (I think that’s what it can be called, when the dye accumulates on the surface of the egg but comes off easily whith the wax), sort of found a solution – placing the back egg into another dye (I think I used red Sappan wood), to seal the black of logwood more to the surface of the egg, and didn’t make it again even though I do still have some of the essence powder.

Then, me being the restless experimenter, I saw the logwood chips being sold in one of the online shops, and could not resist buying them and trying them out.

According to Cardon, logwood (Lat. Haematoxylum campechianum) was the Mayan black dye, the word for logwood tree and for the color black are the same in Mayan language. It was brought to Europe along with the other South- and Central American dyes, and at the beginning caused some confusion – the lilacs, blues and purples achieved with logwood were extremely desirable but not lightfast, so at some point there was even an attempt to outlaw the logwood dye. When the Europeans finally got over their fashion desires and started using logwood for the black, the ration of quality per price of it ended up being much better than other sources of black, including the later non-natural version. It kept being used long after the invention of the chemical dyes, the last shipment of logwood logs came to England around the beginning of the second world war, and the last of that was milled sometime in the 1960-s. Logwood essence was already in use for a while and was more economical to bring over. It is still used now in medical pathology, haematoxylin which is made from logwood is a common stain used in histology.

So, here are some of my first logwood chip result. I have soaked them in boiling water with some calcium, and the first batch of dye was this soaked water, the second one was the same chips simmered in new water again, giving a very similar if not the same result. The dye I got was a bit brown-looking, and was giving a sort of cream to meauve to purplish brown. With strong yellow it produced the mustardy-green, and with alum – dark almost black purple. Some of the instructions said, if it looks brown, then the acidity of it can be reduced to result in a more bluish color, so I did add some baking soda since I did not have the suggested ammonia, and indeed the changed the outcome towards greyish-blue with alum and black with iron. Similar results on turkey eggs.

I’ll try to get some ammonia and play more with it.

Dried Cochineal (whole bugs)

About a month ago we went to a local art shop which is the home base of the amazing water-colour paints (https://stonegroundpaint.com), and as we got talking about colors, paints and dyes, the owner, Eric, brought out a container of dried cochineal and gave me some to take home. So yesterday I finally got to it and cooked up some dye with alum and cream or tartar (as suggested by some fabric dyeing recipes). The pink you see on these eggs is that cochineal dye.

The other coral-like reddish orange is coreopsis extract with alum on top of the fist cochineal. The brown is the same cochineal-coreopsis sequence finished with a dip in iron water.

I will have to play more with the next batches of the dye (I only used about a teaspoon of bugs, which I then ground not very finely), I will likely use more bugs next time (to make the color more concentrated), I’ll grind them better, and will start with no mordants, and add cautiously.

For the first experiment with the whole bugs, I think this is not bad. I have tried cochineal extract before but didn’t have a lot of it, so I used it in combination with madder.

The next few months I will be experimenting more with cochineal, both the whole bugs and the extract. My parents gave me for Christmas a gift certificate to the Maiwa online store, so I’ll order some cochineal from them.

And the season is over for now…

All of these colors were achieved with the combinations of saskatoon berries (blue), sappan wood (red, pink), buckthorn (yellow), buckthorn with iron (brown), gardenia (yellow/gold), coreopsis (gold), elderflower (yellow) (except emu where no dyes were used), plus the natural variations of eggshell color and vinegar for etching.

I’m becoming more comfortable with drop-pull technique, seeing more possibilities. While most of these eggs are trying to be strictly traditional as much as possible (mostly Ukrainian, some Lithuanian), a few patterns have just appeared out of nowhere, non-traditional (though not necessarily anti-traditional) which is nice. To write “my own” design is something that almost never happened to me in the other more common technique, so to have it happen in drop-pull after a relatively short time is rather surprising and even inspiring. 🙂

I’m getting ready to put away the dyes and tools for now, but there might be some more posts of close-up shots, and who knows when the next time will be…

Sappan wood – brasilwood from India – some history, background, and recipes

Sappan wood (Ceasalpinia sappan) has become my favourite source of red color for now. Native to Asia, it is the “older” cousin of what is now known as Brazil wood. When the Portuguese invaded what is now Brazil in 1500, the redwood trees they saw growing there reminded them of Sappan wood, which they already knew, called it pau-brasil and used for dyeing along with the rest of the Europe. Because of extensive use for dye and for violin bows, or perhaps the opposite, because the dye business was not economically profitable after the invention of the chemical dyes, or maybe due to both these reasons, the Brazil wood (Ceasalpinia echinata, Paubrasilia echinata) is almost extinct now, Wikipedia says that the trade of Brazilwood is likely to be banned in the immediate future. So now we are back to the good old Sappan wood, which is still available and abundant in India and China. It is used medicinally in both Ayurveda (where it’s called Pathimukham) and in Traditional Chinese medicine (where it’s called Su Mu). Continue reading

Coreopsis + old sappan wood

Made this egg for someone’s 60th marriage anniversary, based on the traditional design, double yolk goose egg, vinegar etch, gold- coreopsis extract, orange – old sappan wood, then egging etch to white, and backround pink – same sappan wood. The contrast between pink and orange is not clear enough, should have made the background lighter or gone for a dark dye.

Traditional patterns and their surprises, didn’t realize there’s a star at the narrow ends, until I actually made it:

Last year’s eggs

Here are some eggs that I made last year but didn’t get to post on the blog. As usual, natural dye experiments.

Smaller egg – duck, yellow-marigold, brown – dried elderberry (not particularly reliable, seems like). Bigger egg – goose, yellow– marigold, orange – madder, brown – dried elderberry.

Yellow – weld, olive green – malva, blue – cabbage, pink – old madder+cochineal after vinegar. Smallest egg is chicken, then duck, the goose.17546764_10155099642727660_3361046898600688573_o

Weld (yellow), cabbage (blue, green, teal), duck eggs.17349598_10155028475437660_8850810793684496621_o

Weld (yellow), cabbage (green/olive), and madder/cochineal (orange), duck eggs17239776_10155028478162660_7696951738701663448_o.jpg