Can you tell I'm hungover?
Can you tell I'm breaking out?
Oh, I forgot, I got
concealer and I didn't conceal my
one pimple. Damn it.
[We're rolling.] Oh, all right.
Hi I'm Althea.
And I'm Ben.
And today we are
attempting the traditional
Ukrainian Art of Pysanka.
That's how I say it? Pysanka? [Pysanka.]
Pysanka? Hopefully we won't mess it up.
OK so this is actually going to be
our first attempt doing this.
Oh.
Should we explain what it is?
Sure go ahead.
Yeah. Do you want to?
So basically pysanka
is like
a way of making really
elaborate Easter eggs using
a wax resist method.
So we would use like...
Little tools to draw lines
onto an egg, and then we dip
it in coloured dyes and wherever
the wax is on the egg it doesn't
pick up the color. So that's how you
get those little designs on the egg.
And these are the those little
tools?
So it's these little tools.
They're called the kistka?
So they can be called pysak, kistka
or kool'kuh.
Yeah. So yeah we have three
different sizes,
and we heat it up over the candle
and just dip it in this beeswax.
So we need to wash these,
right?
Yes.
Because?
Because they have oils on them
from our hands and also
from chicken cavities.
So I was told.
So we just want to get all of that
oily stuff off so that the wax
actually sticks to it.
To prevent salmonella.
Do you know anything about
salmonella.
I don't.
Except it is very deadly.
So yeah, we'll just put them in water
and apparently by doing this we can
check to see if the eggs
are cracked.
Are we going to empty these out?
So we're going to do them the way
that
we used to do them when I was a kid,
which is just poking a hole in the
top and the bottom,
and blowing out the inside.
And then I'm going to get a get a
piece of spaghettini
and I'm going to put it inside to
break up the yolk.
All right, are you ready?
Yeah. I'm going to get lipstick all
over mine.
Oh my god. Oh,
you've done amazing.
Oh yeah.
Oh man.
I haven't got any yolk yet but....
That's my egg design.
I can't believe that actually
worked, guys.
Do you know how hard that was at
home?
All right.
So yeah, so, if you want to do your
design now and you need to get those
perfect lines all the way around the
outside the way that we should do
it is by just wrapping an elastic
around. The ones we've got a pretty
gigantic. By doing
that - or it could just even be a
piece of paper.
Yeah. Or a measuring tape.
Yeah. That will give you the guide
to make your first line.
You can find like sheets like this
online that show you how to slowly
build up your design by just
dividing up your egg into quadrants
and doing tiny little designs
on it.
All right. So....
I grew up in Alberta near
Vegreville, where the giant
pysanka Easter egg is.
And I didn't realize that that was
actually like something that was
kind of stopped - like it wasn't
practiced in the Ukraine for a
while. So it kind of like - I
actually looked up on one of the
dictionary things and it said the
word pysanka was Canadian.
What?
It said origin: Ukraine, but I guess
it's just because people here kept
doing it.
I don't even remember doing these.
And so once you've got your design
to this level, this is the part
where you would start melting
wax onto the egg.
And I foolishly chose -
I'm going to try and do a CBC gem.
What you do -
obviously get a candle going.
And then the idea is
that you
Heat the kitska ...
kinska? Kitska? Kitska? Kistka.
So....
a surprise visit by our
resident Eastern European, Olsy.
We'll do we say it?
Kistka.
Kistka. That makes sense.
There's like a T in there.
Kistka. Kistka!
Yeah. So you're heating it up.
And then using it to...
scoop a little piece of wax
out and once you have
a little piece of wax inside
you heat it up again.
The wax will fill the nozzle.
And you should be able to....
Oh yeah, it works!
So yeah.
So you're just able to just
go out like a regular
fountain pen.
Hey we have one extra one extra
kistka if someone wants to help.
You'll have to explain to me once
again how to do this.
OK. You scoop a little piece of wax
into this little little holder here.
[This one?] Yeah, right into the
back of it.
And then heat up the front and the
wax should just pour down.
So it's going to be like a dye
resist. So we'll put the wax on...
we'll do our drawing with it, and
then we'll put them in these dye
containers and wherever we put the
wax there won't be -
no dye will stick.
This will remain white wherever
we're putting the lines right now.
And then we'll dye them from
lightest to darkest
by adding more and more wax, and
whatever we cover up will stay.
But before we dye we're going to
have to actually now close up
these holes at the bottom with
a little bit of wax so
that we're not just filling
them up with dye water that will
drip everywhere.
OK. Vinegar bath to get all
our hand oils off of it.
I have no idea why we're doing
this. And actually, when we were
preparing these dyes all of them
said add a tablespoon of vinegar.
Yeah. Why is there something growing
in here?
Whoa! I don't know. Maybe that's why
we weren't supposed to put vinegar
in there.
So there's something growing in here
now. Whoa.
So our orange dye may or may
not adhere to our eggs.
I'm going to wash these other ones too.
Should I?
Oh, it's actually taking the dye
really well.
So the cool thing is that
- at the end, you
use fire to melt off all the wax,
but until then we actually are not
going to be able to see our design.
This is just going to keep getting covered
up by the dyes.
But I don't think we normally do
stuff like this anymore, right?
Yeah. Well, one of
the women that I was talking to who
is an expert in writing
pysanka
said that she considers it like a
super Zen activity.
It really feels like that.
I know that there was the big trend
a couple of years ago with adults
doing colouring books.
I don't know why they wouldn't get
into this.
So you're going green...
Ben's eggs are really nice. Look how nice his are.
And then look at mine.
Scarlet.
All right.
I'll do turquoise.
Holy moly.
We both have different dipping
techniques.
What is yours?
Mine is just spin it.
That's smart.
So this guy gets everywhere.
So if you do this at home be careful
- your white tables will be stained.
All right. We're ready to go for the
final dunk.
OK, we're going to have black
because when we were looking at
pictures of the ones online, the
black ones were the prettiest ones.
So, after we do this, the
next step once the black dries
is to just melt off the wax
with a candle. But I've seen that
you could use a hairdryer as well.
But do you have one?
I don't.
You're going to do this the hard
way.
Yeah. Oh it came out perfect!
That's amazing.
That's pretty good.
Oh yes.
So....
This whole thing - like we got the
the dyes and
the kistkas and a little
beeswax, and it was just
over 20 bucks.
I got them off of Etsy but I saw
there were lots of shops that had
them, I think you could probably get
them on Amazon.
I'm really excited to burn mine.
I'm just going to try.
How do I do it?
I think, I think you need a
towel...
to wipe up the excess, as
it melts.
It's not doing ...
woah! Oh my god. OK,
I want to show that.
Woah! So it's revealing
the colours underneath.
Is it actually working?
Yeah, it's working.
OK. So as I'm as I'm holding
it over the flame it's melting the
wax, and it's revealing
all of those different layers of dye
that we we put on the egg.
Oh, it's making the egg really hot.
Oh really? Oh, it looks beautiful!
Oh my god, that's awesome.
It's
a little - a little rough around the
edges, but I'm pretty sure I can
tidy it up with a pen or something.
So, the stage after
this, what you have to do once
you've melted off all the wax,
is you have to get some sort of
varnish.
You varnish the eggs after,
but you have to use an oil
based varnish. If it's water based,
it'll take all the ink off
that you've put- or, all the dye off
that you've put on already.
I like this one so much!
I like - this one is amazing!
All right, we're going to cut now to
after these are varnished.
We're going to pack everything up
and, uh.....
Yeah -
Make them pretty outside?
Yeah, make them all pretty. And this
is definitely an
absolute recommend for you if
you're looking for something to do
over a weekend.