Examples of pysanka ornaments and their meaning. Pysanka - history, symbols and symbolism, ornaments, varieties, traditions. The meaning of the symbols on Easter eggs

Pysanka- an egg decorated with traditional symbols, which are drawn using wax and dyes. The making of Easter eggs was associated with the pre-Christian folk custom of welcoming spring, and later with Easter.

This type of folk art is common among many Slavic peoples, including Ukrainian. Researchers believe that the Ukrainian pysanka has more than 100 symbolic designs.

Pysanka (galunka)- symbol of the Sun; life, his immortality; love and beauty; spring revival; goodness, happiness, joy.

In the myths of many peoples of the world, it is the egg that is the source of peace. Among the pagan Slavs, Easter eggs existed already during the time of the Antes - our ancestors / III - VIII centuries. n. e./ and were a symbol of the solar cult. Birds are the messengers of spring resurrection, the Sun, and their testicles are the emblem of the sun - life, birth.

A bird's egg in general is the embryo of life, a symbol of the sun god; In ancient times it symbolized goodness, joy, happiness, love, wealth, success, the location of good forces, human protection from evil forces. (Kilimnik S. Ukrainian year. - Book 2. - P. 176)

A clean, smoothly painted or decorated egg acquired symbolic religious and ritual meaning long before Christianity. Many peoples have preserved legends in which the egg is the source of life, light and warmth, even the embryo of the entire Universe. There are also numerous versions of legends that explain the existence of Easter eggs during the Easter holidays, link the emergence of traditions of painting Easter eggs with gospel events (the passion of Christ), etc.

With the introduction of Christianity, the symbolism of Easter eggs gradually changed. It has become a symbol of joy and faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a symbol of forgiveness. Easter eggs were used as an objectified symbol of love, giving them to young people. In folk medicine they were used to “pump out” diseases. Blessed Easter eggs were buried in the ground /for a high harvest/, placed in a coffin, in a manger for livestock. The husks from pysanka were thrown “for luck” onto the roof of the house, etc. It is interesting that pysankar-making was characteristic only of those ethnic groups that began to be called Ukrainians.

Considering the physical characteristics of the egg shell, medieval pysanky have not survived to this day. However, mass painting of eggs in Ukraine has existed for centuries. In the 19th century the production of Easter eggs in different artistic versions existed throughout Ukraine.

Easter eggs were made in the spring, before Easter, by rural girls and women, monastery monks and icon painters, city young ladies, bakers and others. Therefore, the decoration technique was different. In the villages, eggs were painted in one color, sometimes patterns were scratched out, decorated with wax and painted in several colors, while in the city they resorted to various artificial methods - they glued pieces of colored paper, foil, fabric, thread, etc. Easter eggs were mainly made for themselves and only occasionally for sale at the fair.

Once upon a time, magical actions were performed with Easter eggs. To ensure the harvest, they were rolled over green wheat during the spring Yuri and buried in the ground. On Easter morning, the young people washed themselves with water, into which they had previously placed eggs and silver coins, which were supposed to give strength and beauty. Blessed Easter eggs were a talisman for homes against thunder and fire, and for people and animals against the “evil eye”; they were used as a cure for certain diseases. Pysanky served as an object of amusement for children and youth. They played “cue ball”, “chair” games, etc. From empty Easter eggs, adding a tail, wings and a dough head to them from colored paper, they made so-called “pigeons”. They, as well as Easter eggs strung on a cord (usually three at a time), were hung near the icons, thus decorating the home.

Symbolism of pysanka flowers

Krashanki are considered the oldest - these are Easter eggs of the same color. Subsequently, multi-colored Easter eggs arose, in which various natural dyes were used. Such paints, unlike modern ones, had pleasant soft shades. But the color in pysanka appeared not only for the sake of beauty, but also received its symbolic meaning, the origin of which is not accidental.

The yellow, golden, orange colors of pysanka affect a person like the rays of the sun, giving a joyful, bright mood. In pysanka they mean warmth, hope, heavenly bodies, and harvest on the farm.

The red color on Easter eggs is probably the most significant. It is not for nothing that in the popular language it has become close to the concept of beautiful; the words “red” and “good” have become synonymous. Red paint symbolizes goodness, the joy of life, and for young people - hope for a happy marriage. It is the red egg that is the main symbol of the Resurrection, sacrifice and heavenly fire.

Green the color means the spring awakening of nature, hope for a good harvest.

Blue- sky, air, and also health.

Brown, brown- the earth and its hidden life force.

Black color is the color of the night, the otherworldly, everything unknown and secret. In pysanka, being a background, it reveals the power of other colors, just as in life darkness makes it possible to understand what light is. It also symbolizes the infinity of human life, the continuation of existence after death.

Multi-colored pysanka is a symbol of family happiness, peace, and prosperity.

Dark Easter eggs were painted on farewells as an expression of respect for those who had passed on to another world.

Dividing the surface of pysanky

Remember children's tongue twisters that use numbers? What about fairy tales in which there are certainly either three kingdoms or three sisters? For our ancestors, numbers were sacred, each had its own meaning and its own power. Therefore, the division of the surface of the egg into a certain number of parts and the stable repetition of certain elements are not accidental.

The division into two conveyed the idea of ​​two worlds. They were often divided into three vertically, this is how the three celestial spheres were designated. When divided by four, a cross is formed, which means the four cardinal directions.

The classic division of the hemispheres into four parts, each of which is divided into three, conveys the idea of ​​four seasons with three months. According to other ideas, the world was divided into six sides. This spatial orientation is conveyed by a hexagonal star.

While studying Easter eggs, scientists suggested that in ancient times there was an eight-year calendar cycle. In folk mythology, the sky has eight spheres - “clouds”: seven are blue, and the eighth is red, on which God himself sits.

A very interesting section into forty parts, the so-called forty-wedges. Each wedge denoted a certain type of human activity or natural phenomenon, and in the Christian vision - forty days of fasting.

The ornament of Easter eggs is symbolic. It is based on three cardinal symbols that reflect the vertical structure of the Universe: a circle, a square (or rhombus) and a center, the world axis, in the form of a cross, a tree, an 8-shaped sign. Hence there are three types of ornament: circular, key, and braided.

The design of the ornament is called a pattern and is a grid formed from the intersection of circles and ovals encircling the egg. Ornamental forms - magical signs-symbols - are placed in the divorce fields.

If the egg is divided in two vertically by a belt and mainly its sides are decorated, then such a pysanka is called a side pysanka. The main dividing belt can be in the form of a thread, a ribbon, decorated or undecorated. It may be absent altogether, but the principle of placement of the main ornamental forms is preserved. Thus, we have Easter eggs “belted” and “unbelted”. Divide the egg in half along the meridian, and then into four parts. The marks will be placed in the resulting segments of the egg, and such a pysanka will be called longitudinal based on the type of pattern. The “eight-round” pattern consists of eight spheroidal segments formed from four equal vertical lobes of the egg, surrounded by the equator line.

The mesh is a symbol of fate. Protects from evil spirits, separates evil from good.

The yellow mesh is a symbol of the sun and the destiny that is being built here.
The dots are a symbol of fertility.

Ornamental forms are placed in the fields vertically, diagonally, radially, and segment. They alternate in a checkerboard pattern and are repeated. The same sign may be placed in opposite directions.

If the ornament as a whole is characterized by rhythm, then the ornaments of Easter eggs allow us to talk about tempo-rhythm. Ornamental forms based on a broken cross and swastika create the impression of movement - rotation of the two halves of the egg in opposite directions .

The meaning of the symbols on Easter eggs

When an egg separates, fields of various shapes and sizes are formed. They form the basis for placing ornamental elements. Each of these signs came to us from time immemorial, but most of them can be read, because even very strange signs basically express objects that are close and understandable to us. We, like our ancient ancestors, rejoice at the first spring leaves, listen in surprise to the lark singing, and admire the flow of the river. To express the eternal, our ancestors created symbols. Let's look at the main ones.

Sun

The life of ancient people was very difficult. It was difficult to survive the cold winter and wait for the new harvest. The arrival of the long-awaited spring was perceived as the birth of a new sun, the liberation of the heavenly body from the forces of darkness. Therefore, everything that is best in human life is associated with the symbol of the sun. Among the pagan gods, Dazhbog, the solar god, was one of the main ones. In Christianity, the sun also became a symbol of God, since God is light.

Cross

One of the sun signs, a symbol of the universe, four cardinal directions, four winds, four seasons. Derived from a schematic image of a bird, in ancient times the sun was represented as a bird flying across the sky.

In Christianity, the cross is a symbol of suffering, death and resurrection, with which the church begins, blesses and sanctifies everything.

Swastika, svarga or broken cross

Sign of holy fire, sun and perpetual motion. One of the oldest symbols in general. For the first time, its images are found on the products of primitive hunters, and this is about thirty thousand years ago. According to popular belief, a broken cross foreshadowed goodness and protected against dark forces. Varieties of the swastika are widely used not only in egg painting, but also in embroidery, ceramics, and wood carving.

Rose, rosette, star

Symbolizes the sun and the morning dawn. Contains an oblique cross, a straight cross, as well as left-handed and right-handed swastikas. In folk symbolism it is an unchanging symbol of love. Giving a pysanka with a star meant a declaration of love.

Infinity or curveball

A sign of one of the main elements - water. Being necessary for all living things, water could simultaneously be angry and unforgiving during the spring flood. Surprised by the power and tirelessness of water, our ancestors used its sign to denote eternity. The wavy line is the predecessor of cruciform symbolism. Rooted in Trypillian culture, this symbol of eternal movement and continuity of life is to this day an indispensable attribute of Pysankar art. "Meander" is interpreted as a symbol of water, fertility and the life cycle.

Rakes, combs, triangles with combs

Belong to symbols that are associated with water. Depicts clouds and rain. They wrote pysanky with rakes during drought, believing that by writing this sign they could summon the long-awaited heavenly waters.

Deer

Symbol of prosperity, wealth. It has existed since the times of primitive hunters, when the meat of this animal was the main food, the skin was needed for sewing clothes and building housing, and weapons and jewelry were made from bones and horns. In folk mythology, the heavenly deer carries the sun on its antlers. The running deer was a prototype of longevity and good health.

Horse

The horse symbol is also associated with sun worship. According to ancient legends, the sun rides across the sky in a chariot drawn by fiery horses. In Christianity, the horse is the image of a fearless prophet of faith, unrestrained, ready for self-sacrifice. The horse meant strength and love of work.

Bird

A symbol of the origin of life, fertility, offspring, prosperity, a half-earthly, half-heavenly being. The rooster was considered a conductor of God's sun and a guard against evil, while the dove was a symbol of love, fidelity and harmony. In Christianity, the bird is a symbol of ascension to God.

Duck's feet, lady's hand, glove, grandfather's fingers

The bird's footprint was also a talisman, like the handprint of the pagan Sun God, who in ancient times was associated with a bird. Such signs symbolized power, patronage, integrity - everything that was associated with respect for the hand.

Tree of life or flowerpot

According to popular beliefs, in the middle of heaven there is a large tree - the Tree of Life. It covers the entire paradise and has the leaves and fruits of all the trees. It is on it that the three brothers are located - the Sun, the Moon and the rain, or their Christian substitutes - the Lord and Saints Peter and Paul. Designates the axis of the universe, which connects three worlds - underground, earthly and heavenly, the so-called fabulous “three kingdoms”. A symbol of nature, forever renewed.

The tree of life also symbolizes the development of the family - father, mother and child. Therefore, as a rule, a tree has three branches. In Christianity, it is a symbol of God's wisdom.

One of the most common symbols on Easter eggs, as well as on towels, wall paintings, carpets, and dishes, is the “Tree of Life” symbol, or as it is also called “pot”. The most ancient Ukrainian carols brought to us the ancient ideas of people about those times when there was neither heaven nor earth, but only the open sea, and on it - green sycamore. So, in the form of a tree - poplar, willow, oak, birch, apple tree, pear - the core of the universe was imagined, around which the balance of opposites was established. The world tree is always depicted not natural, but stylized, i.e. simplified, generalized. In such images, it is necessary to divide them into three tiers vertically and maintain a clear system of right and left sides. The lower part - the roots, going underground, is often represented in the form of a triangle, a pot. It contains snakes, fish, waterfowl and animals, therefore part of the tree is not only the underground world, but also the sea, river, all water. Also, the lower part of the World Tree is the world of the underground god, the lord of the underground fire and countless riches, the embodiment of ideas about the world otherworldly, old times. The middle tier represents the earth, the real world, the world of the present. Large animals are depicted here - bulls, horses, deer, wolves, bears - and humans. The upper part of the World Tree rises to boundless heights - to God. Birds, bees, and heavenly bodies settle in the upper reaches. It often happens that the sun shines on the top of a tree. The tree of life is also a family tree, where each flower represents a relative, and all together is the embodiment of the genealogy of a particular person. A simpler three-member designation for a tree-family. This is a trunk with three branches: father, mother, child.

An amazing property of the Tree of Life is its ability to turn into a Coast Guard Woman with her hands raised to the sky. By the way, in the ancient myths of some peoples of the world, a woman was formed from wood. The image of the World Tree is an image of embodied fertility, associated with the Mother Goddess, and is her symbol and attribute.

The great goddess was considered the mistress not only of the sky, but of all nature. Often the sign of the earth was depicted on her feet (in this case, the goddess’s feet turned into roots) or she was drawn as a snake-footed woman, since the earth is the place of residence of the Serpent. A similar image of a female ancestor was widely known among other peoples: among the Egyptians - Isis, among the Babylonians - Ishtar, among the Greeks - Hera, among the Thracians - Semele, among the Scythian farmers - Tabitha.

In Ukrainian ornaments, the “Tree of Life”, as a rule, was depicted very realistically. Trees of unsurpassed beauty were embroidered on huge towels from the Kiev and Poltava regions. And on Easter eggs they gradually acquired the laconic form of the now well-known “flowerpots” and “three-leafed flowers”. At the same time, even in ancient times, the abstract image of the “Tree of Life” - a “trident”, which later became the coat of arms of Ukraine, began to dominate.

Oak leaves

Oak in Ukrainian traditions has always been associated with strength and power. Oak leaves are a favorite motif in the embroidery of men's shirts. According to pre-Christian beliefs, the oak was the world tree. Oak trees are more often struck by lightning, and therefore they are also a symbol of God's thunder.

Tricorn or tripod, triquetra

One of the oldest symbols of the sun, as well as the sign of the holy number “three”.

On many folk Easter eggs there is an image of Fire, Sun, Dawn. Fire, next to water, is a factor of the universe, a symbol of male power. Since Fire and Water are brother and sister, and, having united, they formed love, the earth and everything that is on it, then in many rituals Fire is a symbol of love, which is the messenger of the Sun on Earth and gives people light, warmth, bread and all kinds of food, helps in crafts (forging), but, like the Sun, it can be good or dangerous depending on people’s attitude towards it. Therefore, Fire, like the Sun, must be respected and not anger - because then it can severely punish. There are strict prohibitions against spitting on fire, throwing garbage, etc. Triquetra– a symbol of fertility, fire, masculine strength.

On Easter eggs, Fire is indicated by the sign “three-armed” (other names for this sign are “triquetra”, “tripod”). It is believed that the tricorn is a sign associated with the Neolithic (Stone Age) god of the earth, and fire was one of his attributes. This sign is also a symbol of fertility, since the God of the earth was the bearer of the male, fertilizing factor. a triangular hook consists of three rounded or broken hooks extending from a common center, or from a circle or triangle.

Pine trees, spruce trees, fir trees

They are considered symbols of eternal youth, health, growth and immortality.

Charm symbols

The exhibit, stored in the Kiev Historical Museum, bears the symbolic name - “Bereginya”. As we know, in pre-Christian times our ancestors believed in the Great Goddess - Bereginya or Makos. This symbolic image - a stylized female figure with her hands raised up - subsequently turned into a plot reproduction of the Mother of God.

Sigma- symbol of a snake. Found on ceramics of the Trypillian culture. Means water, thunder, lightning. The snake guards the home.

Symbols of strength and endurance

In the old days in Rus', as soon as a girl was born, she was washed in a font made from a decoction of viburnum and willow leaves. They gave feminine strength, the woman then becomes a good wife and gives birth to healthy children. When a boy was born, an oak tree was planted in his honor and the baby was bathed in an infusion of oak leaves. Oak leaf - so that the strength does not deplete.

Symbols of love

Since ancient times, the dove has been considered a symbol of love. If you want to have a happy family, then draw doves on an oak tree. Love is also symbolized by the spruce tree (Smereka). In order to find out how many years later a girl will get married, they ask the cuckoo about it. Therefore, the cuckoo is a symbol of love. And in order to always be paired with your loved one, they draw flowers with paired petals.

Symbols promoting the birth of children

Symbols of health and longevity

So that no one gets sick, they draw a sun, a rose, a fish, a deer on the testicles. And the endless thing helps people live long, so that misfortune comes to them and so that beekeepers have a good honey harvest.

Symbols favoring a rich harvest

The diamond is a symbol of earth, the dots are seeds, and the rake is a symbol of rain.

Square and rhombus

The four elements, four seasons, four life stages (birth, youth, maturity and old age), four cardinal directions and times of day were successfully encrypted into the sides of the square. The mesh “square” “sieve” ornament symbolized the eternal separation of the concepts of good and evil.

Spiral

This symbol represented primitive ideas about the structure of the Universe. The line twisted in a spiral also meant water or a coiled snake, personifying the feminine face. In addition, the spiral was identified with a labyrinth that “confuses” evil forces on the way to a pure soul.

Symbols that heal

Warning symbols

To reduce disasters, take care of your households. Easter eggs with warning symbols will also help you. “Wolf teeth” and “bear paws” will remind you of predatory animals, “rabbit ears” will remind you of the need to protect vegetables, and the “raven beak” on a pysanka will remind you of the danger of birds of prey. If such Easter eggs are kept at home, they will protect pets and remind them of danger

Christian symbols

These were Christian symbols. One depicted a beautiful church, the other depicted 40 wedges, and there were also Easter eggs with crosses surrounded by an endless border and with the inscription “Christ is Risen.”

The triangle is often found on Easter eggs and denotes the trinity of the world: sky, earth and water, father, mother and child.

The triple principle - earth, man and sky - found its expression in this symbol. For our ancestors, a triangle filled with a mesh or linear hatch meant a plowed field. In the Christian interpretation, forty triangles acquired the meaning of forty days of fasting or forty martyrs.

Plant and animal motifs

Pysankarkas constantly drew inspiration for their designs from the natural world, depicting flowers, trees, vegetables, leaves and entire plants in highly stylized ways. Such symbols reflected the renewal of nature and life.

The most popular floral design is a flowering plant in a pot or a tree, which symbolizes life. Cherry, a symbol of girlish beauty, was supposed to bewitch love. On Hutsul Easter eggs you can often see a stylized pine branch - a symbol of eternal life and youth. There is a belief that anyone who washes their face with sacred water containing Easter eggs will always be young, healthy and beautiful. The grape motif symbolized brotherhood, goodwill and long-term, faithful love.

The ornament of apples and plums was supposed to bring wisdom and health. Among the flowers depicted on the Easter eggs were roses, periwinkles, lilies of the valley, sunflowers, tulips and carnations. All of them were supposed to help the plants mature.

Pine is a symbol of health.
The oak tree is a symbol of strength.
Plums are a symbol of love.
Hops are a symbol of fertility.
Any berry is a symbol of fertility; mother.
Flowers are a symbol of girlhood.

Wishing for an addition to the family, the pysanka was decorated with images of flowers: bells, periwinkle, lilies of the valley, carnations. Viburnum leaves meant strength, endurance, faith in justice. Oak leaves symbolized faith in the forces of nature and worship of the gods.

Although animal motifs are not as popular on Easter eggs as plant ones, we still see them, especially on Hutsul products. These symbols had a dual meaning: to provide their owners with the best attributes of animals, such as health and strength, and to assure a long and fruitful life for the animals. Animals such as deer, rams, horses, fish and birds were drawn abstractly; sometimes pysankars reproduced only parts of animals - duck necks, hare ears, chicken feet, ox eyes, ram horns, wolf teeth, bear paws.

The rooster and the dove were considered God's bird, which would awaken the sun and human conscience, keeping everyone living in the house under its wing; the latter were written as a symbol of the soul and the Holy Spirit.

The dove is a symbol of the soul.
Swallow - the long-awaited arrival of spring.

Types of Easter egg painting. Colorful Easter eggs

Krashenki

Krashenki- from the word paint. You can color eggs in different ways.
Some housewives boil eggs hard, and then immerse them in a solution of warm water with food coloring, which can be bought at the store, for 10-15 minutes.
Other housewives like to dye eggs in a decoction of onion peels. To do this, place raw eggs in a saucepan with water, add onion peels and cook for 15-20 minutes until the eggs acquire the desired color.
Previously, eggs were painted in a special way: they were wrapped in dry leaves of oak, birch, and nettle, tied with thread and boiled. The result was beautiful “marbled” eggs.

Drapes

For drapanki It is better to take brown eggs. The shell of such eggs is stronger than that of white eggs.
First, the eggs are boiled, then painted some darker color, and then dried. The pattern is applied to the shell with a sharp object - a knife, an awl, scissors, a thick needle, a stationery knife. But before scratching the pattern, it must be applied to the egg with a sharp pencil. During operation, the egg is held in the left hand, and a sharp object in the right.
The openwork pattern on the drape looks good on brown or other dark paint.
The design on the drapanka can be anything, unlike the pysanka with its strictly traditional geometric designs. Using the edge of a stationery knife, scratch the contours of the design. To create shades inside the contours, we draw the pattern not with the tip, but with the entire surface of the knife blade. Erase the pencil sketch with an eraser. The drawing is ready. For shine, you can wipe the egg with a cotton swab and a drop of oil. Pysanky are elaborately painted Easter eggs. Ukrainian Easter eggs are real works of folk art.
To draw Easter eggs, elements of flora and fauna and geometric shapes are used. Each region of Ukraine had its own characteristic ornament and color. In the Carpathian region, eggs were painted yellow, red and black, in the Chernihiv region - red, black and white, in the Poltava region - yellow, light green, white.
The pysanka was not drawn or painted, but written on a raw chicken egg. Every line on a pysanka is an arc. The arcs form circles and ovals and, crossing, divide the surface of the egg into fields, the name of which is the baptismal shirt of the Easter egg.
Easter eggs were supposed to be painted with the first strike of the bell. First, the egg was dipped in yellow paint - “apple tree”, and kept in it for three “fathers”. Each color of the pattern was protected with wax. By the end of the work, the eggs turned into black, gloomy buns. They were dipped into hot water or brought to the fire. The wax melted and the pysanka was born, just as the sun is born from the blackness of the night.
To make the pysanka shine, it was greased. They put it with a whisk around the Easter cake - for God, on a dish with grain - for people, and dyes on sprouted oats - for parents. And three candles burned in honor of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Currently, the art of painting Easter eggs is being revived. Forgotten equipment is being restored, new masters are appearing. A museum of Easter eggs has been created in the city of Kolomiya, Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Malevanka

Malevanka- an egg painted with your own, invented pattern.
They have no symbolic meaning and can be painted with paint (not wax).
The name “malevanki” comes from the word paint; Easter eggs are painted with invented patterns using paints.
Artists, when painting Easter eggs, often draw plot pictures, flowers, landscapes, and landscapes in addition to patterns.

Eggs

Eggs- eggs carved from wood and stone, made from porcelain and clay were made in Rus' back in the 13th century.
Later, eggs began to be decorated with beads, lace, knitting, etc.
The most famous “Eggs” in the world were made by the imperial jeweler Carl Faberge.

Pysanka- traditional painting on a living egg. Easter eggs were written not only for Easter, but throughout the year on important occasions: a wedding, the birth of a child, a talisman for a long journey, the start of a new business, building a house, etc. This custom is much older and has nothing to do with Christianity.

According to archaeological data, the tradition of painting on eggs is more than five thousand years old. Even during the excavations of the legendary Troy, a stone egg was found with symbolic signs applied to it...

The tradition of pysanka was previously widespread among all Slavic peoples from the Southern Urals to the Oder. But it is known that our ancestors used in their ritual actions not stone ones, and not chicken ones, as they do now, but crane ones, and certainly fertilized eggs. During training, young craftswomen are warned that it is impossible to change or distort a drawing-symbol, you cannot write a gag, you cannot be angry and plot evil at this time. Creating a pysanka was and remains an action. Although the purpose is completely different. Now pysanka is a talisman, a home talisman, and not a request to God. It is clearly visible that the symbols are divided into: pre-Christian, and Christian. Pre-Christian these are Volovoye, or Velesovoye eye, conics, Bereginya, solar signs-spiders, Tree of Life. Christian- fish- a symbol of health, fertility, and the element of water. (For people with high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases, it is better to give pysanka with fish signs in blue)

Writing Easter eggs is ancient sacred rite, and they prepared for it with great responsibility. Pisankarka was fasting and was in a prayerful mood. It was necessary to collect eggs from light-colored chickens that were laying eggs for the first time.
In addition to the egg, other things that were used when writing Easter eggs had a special symbolic ritual meaning: water, wax, fire, paint. The water for washing eggs and making paints was taken “untapped”, that is, collected at about 3-4 o’clock in the morning, preferably from seven springs or springs. This water has special healing powers. Or they took raw snow water, that is, melt water. The pysankarka was supposed to carry this water without turning back or to the sides; when meeting passers-by, she was not supposed to greet or answer questions, maintaining strict silence. Then the water was “silent”, clean, that is, it did not carry any information, and therefore could not damage or distort the pysanka.

The ritual of writing Easter eggs began with prayer. The candle was lit. Before going to the bathhouse, the craftswoman thought carefully about what she planned for the year, composed an image, an intention in her imagination that should be manifested. Next, I thought and wondered about the images, signs and symbols that would be best suited for realizing my plans. That is, she depicted in the form of a pattern what she wanted to happen. There were generic symbols that had been tried for many centuries. If a pattern did not bring good luck, it was no longer used. In the process of writing the pysanka, the craftswoman pronounced and “worded” each symbol, representing the people for whom it was intended or the situation or event for which the symbol was supposed to help come true. With spell formulas, she seemed to consolidate the magical power of the patterns. Thus, ancient patterns and symbols are prayers and requests for health, a good harvest, family happiness, etc.

The most common sign on Easter eggs is the Alatyr sign - a symbol of the creation of the world, the center of the Universe. This sign brings harmony and spiritual insight. Svarga (swastika) is a symbol of the movement of the Universe. Svarga is a sign that programs for a successful life, procreation, it is a symbol of God's blessing. It is good to place such a pysanka in the spiritual center of the house.

Easter eggs often depict an infinity symbol. This sign is also called a snake or a wave; it is a symbol of the Goddess Dana, cosmic waters. A wavy line without beginning or end symbolizes infinity, the rhythmic movement of energies, life, the whole world. According to tradition, Easter eggs with this sign were placed above the front door so that they would purify the thoughts of everyone entering the house. Beekeepers put Easter eggs with “infinity” in the hive so that bees would swarm endlessly.

The symbols of the Sun on Easter eggs are a circle, a circle with dots, a circle with a cross inside or rays outside. The Sun can also be symbolized by six- and eight-rayed stars. The sun is the awakening of the world, growth, so “sunny” Easter eggs were most often given to guys. Easter eggs with the signs of the Sun were also written to children, placed near children's cribs so that they could grow faster and gain strength: children and young people were written on a red background, with clear and variegated colors.

The color on Easter eggs has a sacred meaning. Red (“beautiful, clear”) denotes harmony and love. Black is the color of the other world. Therefore, Easter eggs with a black background were given to elderly people, and were also worn to the graves of deceased relatives. Red and black Easter eggs are magical; the alternation of red and black can also mean the unity of opposites (yin and yang). The black pattern is a symbol of earthly Deities. The moon and stars were depicted in yellow, and the yellow color also denoted the harvest. Blue - sky, air, in magic - health. Green - spring, the revival of nature, the richness of the plant world. Brown, brown - a symbol of fertile land. The unity of white and black means respect for the souls of the dead.

It is believed that an egg strewn with multi-colored dots - grains of fertility - can help a woman become pregnant and give birth safely. Also, women who wanted to have children painted Easter eggs with flowers and gave them to the children.

Easter eggs with diamonds will bring good luck in creativity - fruitful work. The spiral symbolizes eternity - infinity.

Horse and deer are symbols of sunrise and sunset. Ancient myths say that a deer uses its antlers to bring the Sun into the sky. In the myths of many peoples, there is an image that the Sun rides on a horse-drawn chariot. Horses, as well as deer, are considered conductors of the souls of the dead from the world of Revealing to the other world, by analogy with how they “transfer” the Sun from one world to another. A pysanka with such symbols will help disperse stagnant energies and activate vitality.

Oak leaves and acorns symbolize masculinity. A pysanka with such a pattern can be placed at the head of the bed of the head of the family. She will feed him with positive energy and help him in all his endeavors.

Description of the technique:

Soft (not< 4М) грифилем, едва касаясь делим яичко на паралели и меридианы.Карандаш потом сотрется горячим воском.Прогреваем инструмент на огне свечи. Писачок может быть специальным, или например наконечником старой металлической иглы от шприца,аккуратно спиленной. или даже позвонком рыбьего хребта. Внутрь писачка набираем крошку парафина или воск, он более тугоплавкий. Пробуем на салфетке,чтоб на яйце не капнуло где не надо.Заполняем то что должно быть белым,погружаем в тепловатую краску самого светлого цвета.Краски-Желательно анилиновые. Вынимаем в х/б салфетку,обтираем.Далее заливаем парафином из писачка то что желтое,погружаем в следующую краску.Например-оранжевую.Зеленые и голубые фрагменты наносятся кисточкой, невпитавшуюся краску промакиваем салфеткой, заливаем парафином,опускаем в следующую краску.Так далее до самого темного.В конце нагреваем залепленное парафином яйцо в боковом пламени свечи,начинаем растирать парафин по поверхности яйца.В этот момент смывается карандаш и копоть,а яйцо начинает лосниться.

While the pysanka is in paint, at this moment the craftswoman reads prayers and says sentences!

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Easter eggs painted with paints were called Easter eggs. This word also has a second meaning. Pysanka (in Sanskrit "pisanga") means "beautiful, bright." Can you imagine how far back centuries this custom comes from? Eggs were painted all over Rus'. The most beautiful Easter eggs were made in the southern regions, in what is now Ukraine. The process of painting Easter eggs was previously considered a magical ritual act.

Easter eggs in Rus' were never made for oneself, but only as a gift. If you consider how many relatives a person had in those days and how closely people communicated with each other, then sometimes the whole family was engaged in painting eggs, just so as not to forget or offend anyone. By giving a pysanka, the person seemed to be saying: here, I wish you happiness and health. There were also masters of painting eggs; they were called pysankars and had their own secrets. After all, learning how to paint eggs so that people gasp is not so easy. So they kept secrets.

Today we simply dip the egg in paint or, at best, make colorful stains on it, but earlier eggs were painted with symbols, geometric shapes - magical signs. The eggs for Easter eggs were selected very strictly. Not only were eggs that were ugly in shape or color not allowed, it was not even possible to take eggs from an old bird - only from young, healthy hens, and the eggs had to be fertilized.

First, the shells were degreased and pickled using vinegar or alum, and then the eggs were dipped in dye, mostly vegetable. They painted the eggs with a special scribbler - a device with a cavity inside. We used beeswax and white napkins to polish the eggs. Each housewife prepared her own brushes: it could be a hollow bird feather cut off at the top, a straw, a tubular rooster bone attached to a wooden holder.

They started painting the egg with yellow paint, which was called “apple tree” because it was made from the roots of a young apple tree, then they painted it with red paint and completed the coloring with black paint. Between dyeing stages, each new layer was recorded with wax to preserve the intended design. The last layer required the most intensive dyeing, and the eggs were kept in paint for 14 hours. Then, having removed the finished egg from the paint, it was carefully wiped and polished with a white linen napkin, erasing the wax layers.

Painted eggs were kept in the most visible places in the house: they were placed on shelves, placed under icons, or even hung around icons with a garland. Throughout Easter week, neighbors and relatives visited each other and gave them their Easter eggs.

Pysanky are not the only type of magical eggs common in Ukraine. There is another variety called "colors". These eggs were hard-boiled, painted any color, and eaten ceremoniously at dawn on Easter Sunday. The name “krashenki” comes from the word “to paint”, and “pysanki” comes from the word “to write” (that is, to paint, to apply patterns). Krashenki are hard-boiled and meant to be eaten, while pysanky are left raw to preserve their fertility magic.

Krashenki are painted in one single color, usually red, while pysanky are covered with designs and painted in different colors.

There are different types of such eggs:

• Krashenka- one-color.
• Krapanka- with a plain background on which spots, stripes, and specks are applied.
• Rubbish- an egg on which, after painting, the pattern was scratched with a metal tip.
• Malevanka- an egg painted with your own invented pattern.
• Pysanka- an egg painted with an ornamental or plot pattern in accordance with traditional patterns that are passed down from generation to generation. Patterns are drawn on a cold egg with hot wax, then immersed in diluted paint. Then they make a new pattern with wax and dip it in another paint, and so on. When all the patterns have been applied, the wax is removed.
• Eggs- eggs made of wood, porcelain, beads, clay, etc.

Pysanky are magical amulets that bestow protection and fertility. A childless woman was given a pysanka with a picture of a chicken.

To get a bountiful harvest, eggs with images of wheat ears and agricultural ornaments were buried in the first and last furrow of the field. To protect against fire, Easter eggs with blue and green meander-shaped patterns were kept in the chest.

If the fire did break out, the Easter eggs were carried around it to prevent the fire from spreading.

Krashenki also had magical uses. Their main task was healing through transference. The patient wore such an egg around his neck suspended on a thread, and it absorbed the disease. To prevent blood poisoning, it was necessary to touch a person with a consecrated egg. An egg placed under the hive prevented the bees from leaving it and increased honey production. Before sowing a field, an egg wrapped in green oats was buried in it as an amulet of fertility. When a new house was built, amulets made of red dyes decorated with wheat tassels were hung over the doorways to appease spirits that might be disturbed, and in fact to ask them for protection.

According to legend, Easter eggs are stars born of the Mother of God the Bee. Once a year, a Slavic woman had the great honor of representing the Mother of God on earth. On Maundy Thursday, in the hour before dawn, she brought a magical spindle whorl to the threshold and spun a woolen thread, rotating the spindle against the salt: she knitted the “ovary” - the golden embryo of life. During the day I bathed the children, baked bread, and then simmered the paints for Easter eggs in a warm oven. Water for paints was taken on Wednesday evening from seven springs or springs, behind the current - in honor of the seven stars of the Pleiades of the Taurus constellation, where, according to legend, the Creator himself lived. She carried her home silently, in secret. This untouched living water was poured over dried herbs, flower petals, and the bark of a young wild apple tree and placed in the oven for a couple of hours.

While the paint was being prepared, a letter to God was written on a raw chicken egg with hot wax using a fork bone taken from a rooster's breast. Eggs for Easter eggs were only suitable for those that were laid between two lunar months. A real Velikodensky pysanka retained its vitality until the next Maundy Thursday: it did not rot or dry out.

Easter eggs were supposed to be painted with the first strike of the bell. First, the egg was dipped in yellow paint, “apple tree,” and kept in it for “three centuries.” Each color of the pattern was protected with wax. By the end of the work, the eggs turned into black, gloomy buns. They were dipped into hot water or brought to the fire. The wax melted and the pysanka was born, just as the sun is born from the blackness of the night.

To make the pysanka shine, it was greased. They put it with a whisk around the Easter cake - for God, on a dish with grain - for people, and dyes on sprouted oats - for parents. And three candles burned in honor of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Primary colors of the ornament: black, red, yellow, green. The Black (Ryaba) Hen laid a luminous golden egg, from which the Universe was born. Black is the earth that has cast off the white veil of winter. Velikden is red, Yegoriy is green, Kupala is golden (yellow).

Pysanka unlocked the heart for love, gave the power of fertility, protected from the evil eye and damage, slander, illness, natural disaster, poverty, bestowed beauty and wealth, hope for a happy marriage and harvest. She was kept in the house like an icon. The gift of Easter eggs sealed the relationship. Through the Easter egg there was a transfer of spiritual warmth from person to person, there was a transfer of sacred knowledge from generation to generation. Selling pysanka is an unforgivable sin, giving it as a gift meant showing an honor.

The famous pysanka researcher and full member of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society S.K. Kulzhinsky left us information about the Orenburg, Samara, Ufa, Tula, Kuban, Voronezh pysanka. At the end of the 19th century, landowner E. Skarzhinskaya collected more than 2,000 Easter eggs for her ethnographic museum in Lubny, including Kursk Easter eggs from Great Russian villages, of extraordinary beauty and very fine workmanship. You can recognize a Slav by his pysanka, like a birthmark. It is already being written in Siberia and the Urals, in Yaroslavl and Tver, in Moscow and St. Petersburg...

Painting eggs is a creative process. Firstly, an amazing feeling arises simply because you are holding in your hand the beginning of life - an egg, heavy, cool, as if breathing from the inside. And when you paint it, gradually making it darker and darker, you stop seeing the signs that have already been drawn. In front of you is only a uniform black glow. But as soon as you heat a dark egg, the wax will disperse and bright signs will begin to appear through it, like through magic glass.

Before applying the design, be sure to wash the eggs, but do it very carefully so as not to damage the shell. The easiest way to paint boiled eggs. In this case, boil them in water with the addition of 1 tablespoon of salt per 2 liters of water. Remove one at a time and place on a clean towel to cool. You can also paint hollow eggs, that is, blown eggs without contents. Such eggs last longer; they are a kind of “eternal Easter egg”.

It is advisable to use natural paints for painting. Yellow paint is prepared from the roots of a young apple tree, poplar shoots, onion peels, nettle roots, chamomile flowers and other plants. Blue and purple dye can be made from the husks of sunflower seeds, mallow flowers, and blueberries and elderberries. Green paint in its pure (that is, unmixed) form is obtained from the leaves of lily of the valley, nettle, ash and buckthorn bark. Red paint is made from bird cherry berries, flowers and seeds of St. John's wort. Brown is prepared from the bark of apple, oak, and buckthorn. Black is made from alder roots.

Prepare all vegetable paints only in enamel containers. Pour cold water over the raw material for 5-6 hours, then boil over low heat: leaves - 40 minutes, flowers - 30 minutes, bark - 3 hours. Strain the finished broth and add 1 teaspoon of potassium alum to it. Painting time is from 10 minutes to 14 hours. Ready-made dyes are used as indicated on the packaging.

Eggs are painted by dipping them into paint. If you use aniline dyes, do not keep eggs in them for a long time: the dye penetrates deeply into the egg layer and destroys the structure of the shell. The maximum immersion time is 5 minutes for food coloring, 3 minutes for aniline. You should not put wax-coated eggs in hot water - only in warm water. You can't cook Easter eggs at all.

The traditional colors of pysanka are white, yellow, red and black. Coloring begins with white and ends with black. It is permissible to use brown, green, violet, lilac colors, but then the egg is already called a malevanka. During the Painting Process, layers of paint are mixed, so you need to know how to apply new paint to an existing layer. The melted wax is removed from the pysanka using a linen napkin. With constant use, the napkin becomes saturated with wax and polishes the shell well.

It is best to work with beeswax, but you can also use paraffin. And the blown egg is strengthened from the inside with hot paraffin and injected inside using a regular syringe.

Wash white eggs in boiled water at room temperature and dry on a towel.

Wash your hands thoroughly with soap. Take the egg in your left hand and the pencil in your right. Use the little finger of your right hand to maintain the balance of the egg and use a pencil to divide its surface into margins. At the same time, rotate the egg towards you, and draw the line away from you. Try not to change the position of the pencil. Distribute the Easter egg pattern in the fields. Apply the design to the egg: first with a simple soft pencil, and then with wax. Wax is applied according to the design in different ways - with brushes, matches, straws, feathers. A wax brush - a scribe - can be made from metal foil, rolled into a funnel-shaped tube 1-1.5 cm long. The tube is attached with a thin wire to a wooden holder with a diameter of 8 mm and a length of 10-12 cm. But it is best to use brass brushes with a thin and a comfortable tip. You will need several brushes of different thicknesses (if you want to get a drawing with different line thicknesses): they are placed in the melted wax and taken from there as needed.

They work with a pisach like this: heat the brush over a fire (candle, burner) and fill it with wax. The egg is taken in the left hand, and the scribbler in the right, the elbows are pressed to the body so that there is support, the little finger of the right hand rests on the shell, and the fingers of the left hand rotate the egg. The egg is rotated towards itself, and the lines lead away from itself. It is likely that you will not succeed at first, but gradually you will master this art.

Remember: first apply the design to the white surface of the egg with hot wax (using pencil marks). After that, put the egg in the paint. Make sure that the water temperature does not exceed 40° C (otherwise the wax will melt), and the color of the paint is the lightest, that is, yellow. Then cover the egg again with wax and dip it into darker paint (red, red). Play with colors and patterns - painting an egg depends on your imagination. Once you have the colors and patterns you want, remove the wax. To do this, place the egg in the oven for a few minutes or bring it to the tongue of a candle and remove the melted wax with a paper napkin. The finished pysanka can be rubbed with sunflower oil, giving it greater brightness and shine.

If it’s difficult for you to draw magic symbols, you can make a paint instead of a pysanka. You don't need a paint pen to make paint. Need a candle. During painting, the egg is simply covered with droplets and drips of wax. Rotate the egg around its axis and drip wax onto it directly from the candle. Start with white: drip the egg with wax and immerse it in yellow paint, then drip more and paint the egg green, drip it again and put it in dark blue paint. And when, after removing the wax, all the layers are revealed, you can add the missing details to the drops and get magical symbols - a fish, a bird, a flower, a tree, a butterfly.

If you start painting not with white, but with yellow, you will get a magical floury paint. Droplets of wax need to be lowered so that scales are formed: each time a part of the drop is painted over, and they seem to partially overlap each other. At the end, immerse the egg not in dark paint, but in water and vinegar (proportion 1:1). Then wash the egg with soap and cold water, melt the wax and remove it with a napkin. The entire egg will be covered with colorful peas.

You can paint eggs using one paint and wax “seals”, resulting in paints with wedges, commas, dots or lines. All these are also magical signs. But if you are making a ritual pysanka, then follow the rules. The pysanka ornament is based on the rotation of the cross around the center, already known to us, which is why familiar figures are formed: a circle, a square (or rhombus) and a center, a world axis, in the form of a cross, a tree, a wheel with eight spokes. These symbols in the egg can be either the basis of the painting (that is, the egg depicts one of the symbols, and the rest are lined up inside this symbol), or be part of the ornament. Here are some examples of symbols used when painting Easter eggs:

Rub the finished Easter eggs thoroughly with unsalted lard. Do not varnish! Store in the shade, in a well-ventilated area.

Each craftswoman had her own repertoire of divine pysanka writing. The letter was passed down from generation to generation, from century to century, from millennium to millennium. Easter eggs symbols have divine power. That’s how I was taught, that’s what I’m telling you, that’s what you’ll tell your children when you teach them to write Easter eggs.

“I will be wrapped in shells, I will be girded with the morning dawn, I will be surrounded by the month, I will be covered with the sun, I will be surrounded by frequent stars - such is the Easter egg... She became the personification of beauty and harmony, the unshakable law of the universe.”
"Pysanka: 300 SAMPLES"

To prepare the Red Egg you will need:
- fresh chicken eggs without defects on the shell,
- pure beeswax, wax church candles, as well as paraffin household candles,
- paints,
- napkins,
- soft simple pencil,
- table vinegar,
- brushes, special tools for wax painting.

Preparing eggs for painting.
The egg shell should be smooth and matte, but whether you choose white or fawn is a matter of taste. A medium-sized chicken egg is most suitable, and it is desirable that both ends of the egg are approximately equally rounded. Eggs for Easter eggs should be washed very carefully in soft, warm water. After washing, lay them out on a towel to dry.
You can paint and paint both boiled and raw eggs.
You should cook eggs like this: carefully place clean eggs in a saucepan, fill them level with water, add salt (1 tablespoon per 2 liters of water) and bring to a boil. Then carefully remove from the boiling water and place on a towel to cool.
Pysanky masters often recommend soaking chicken eggs in water with vinegar before dyeing. A drop of vinegar will not hurt if you are working with quail, duck or goose eggs, but vinegar is contraindicated for chicken shells.
You can paint not only a full egg, but also a blown egg. Dip the paper into egg white and seal both ends. Punch holes and drill them to a millimeter diameter. After this, use a straw to blow out the egg. You can also blow out an egg using a medical syringe: slowly introduce air into the egg; The white and yolk will flow down the needle. The paper can be peeled off, the empty shells washed and dried.

Paints
Natural, food or aniline dyes are used to dye eggs. The raw materials for producing plant dyes can be flowers, leaves, grain husks, bark, roots, and berries.
- yellow paint of various shades is extracted from the bark of a young wild apple tree, poplar shoots, birch leaves, nettle root, buckwheat chaff, onion peels, wild elderberry flowers, chamomile, milkweed, adonis, kupavka, saffron, crocus, St. John's wort, yellow flowers of the bulbous plant dream ;
- blue, cyan or purple - from the husks of black sunflower grains, poplar catkins, mallow flowers, blue flowers of the dream plant, snowdrops, blueberries and elderberries;
- green - from a combination of yellow and blue paints, as well as from moss, buckthorn bark, ash, lily of the valley leaves, primrose, nettle, green rye and wheat;
- red - from sandalwood chips, bird cherry berries, flowers and seeds of St. John's wort, as well as from dried females of the Polish cochineal (an insect from the scale insect family);
- soft pink - from flowers of fireweed angustifolia;
- brown - from the bark of apple, oak, buckthorn, fir cones, onion peels, walnut or horse chestnut leaves;
- black - from young leaves of black maple, alder bark, blue sandalwood.
It is best to harvest the roots in early spring or late autumn, the bark only in the spring, when the tree is “crying,” the flowers at the beginning of flowering, and the leaves when they are very young. To prevent the potion from losing its color, it should be dried only in the shade, and stored in a tightly closed container in a dry, dark place. Coloring berries can be frozen.
To prepare the paints you will also need:
- earthenware or enamel dishes,
- melt or rain water,
- potassium alum.
Fill the raw material with cold water, leave for 5-6 hours, and then boil over low heat: bark for three hours, leaves for about forty minutes, flowers for half an hour. For 100 grams of dry raw materials - 1 liter of melt water. Strain the broth and add a teaspoon of alum. The paint is ready. Dyeing eggs with natural dyes lasts from 10 minutes to 14 hours. This is a painstaking task, but it is redeemed by the healing properties of natural colors. In addition, they are stronger, more familiar and look a hundred times richer than any artificial dyes. Food coloring should be diluted according to the factory instructions.
Aniline dyes are available in powder or tablet form and are sold in hardware stores. You need to buy those that are intended for home dyeing of wool products. Prepare the concentrate according to the instructions. Divide half a liter of concentrate into three parts, pour into glass jars, add 150-200 grams of boiled water and 2 tablespoons of 9 percent vinegar to each of the three parts. If desired, you can add a little paint of a different color to the first two parts to get a wide range of shades. But such an egg cannot be eaten.

Dyeing
The egg is placed on a plastic spoon and dipped in paint.

The paint contains acid, and if the egg is soaked in food paint for more than five minutes, and in aniline paint for more than three, the calcium in the top layer of the shell will be damaged, the egg will be unevenly colored and will be hopelessly spoiled. Having painted one egg, remove it from the paint, carefully blot it with a soft napkin and begin painting another. There are food dyes that only color eggs during cooking. They are suitable for making plain dyes. The variety of colors of paints and Easter eggs is achieved by layer-by-layer application of paints to the egg and the obligatory preliminary reservation of each color with wax. This is a famous batik method. Having completed painting and dyeing, the wax on the egg needs to be melted over a candle flame or in the oven, and then removed from the shell with a napkin.

Aniline or food dyes must be heated in a water bath before use. The paint should be warm, but not hot, otherwise the wax will melt prematurely. For the same reason, pysanka or batik dye cannot be cooked in food or aniline paint. The exception is natural dyes. Eggs painted with wax can be kept in a vegetable dye solution until fully dyed, and then boiled in the same paint. Remove the finished Easter eggs from the hot paint and remove the wax from the shell with a napkin.

Dyeing always starts with light colors and ends with dark ones. Traditional colors of Easter eggs ornaments: white, yellow, red and black. But instead of black, brown, green or purple paint was sometimes used, and instead of red, lilac. A pysanka painted in violation of color symbolism was popularly called a malevanka. Green color was allowed on paints. There were even plain green, trinity, and dyed ones. If you apply red paint to green paint, the egg will turn red.

The paint “does not paint” if it is cold, or the vinegar has evaporated, or the egg is stale, or the chicken was poorly fed; and also if the craftswoman left greasy stains on the shell. Take care of your hands. Don't skimp on napkins. After preparing each pysanka, you will have to wash your hands with soap. You cannot lubricate them with cream, so as not to stain the shell with fat. There is a way out: we paint all thirty eggs on a white field with wax, then paint them one by one in yellow paint, paint them again - paint them red, etc. You will only have to wash your hands at the end of the work. If your palms are wet, keep the egg in a napkin when painting. A blown egg does not sink in paint; you need to take a deep spoon. Before painting a blown egg, be sure to seal the holes with wax, otherwise the paint will get inside the shell. And one more thing: if there are small children in the family, try to do without aniline dyes.

Napkins
When performing pysanka, white napkins are required. It is good to blot the colored egg with paper napkins, but it is still better to remove the melted wax from the shell with a cloth. It’s good if you have cotton rags: old sheets, knitted fabric. A linen napkin soaked in wax subsequently does not remove the wax from the egg completely, but polishes the shell, leaving a pattern under a thin wax film, and then there is no need to cover the souvenir pysanka with varnish, which, although it protects the paint and slightly strengthens the shell, deprives the pysanka of its naturalness.

Wax and paraffin
To protect the color, it is best to use pure beeswax. You can buy it from beekeepers, at the market and in stores selling honey. If you bought wax and are not sure that it is well filtered, melt it in a saucepan over moderate heat and strain through a fine sieve. You can add a little dry dark food coloring to the hot wax. When painted, the colored wax is clearly visible on the egg shell.

Paraffin lines do not last as well as wax lines; they may break during operation. Paraffin is indispensable if it is necessary to reserve large areas of the egg, when blowing raw pysanka, and also to strengthen the shell. The finished raw pysanka is first dipped into molten paraffin and only then holes are drilled in the shell and the contents of the egg are blown out. The blown pysanka is strengthened from the inside as follows: using a glass medical syringe, 5 cubes of hot paraffin are injected into the pysanka, after which the egg is rotated in the hands until it cools down. In this case, the paraffin envelops the shell with a film. In the same way, you can strengthen the shell using PVA glue, the only difference being that after enveloping the shell with glue, sifted sawdust is poured inside the egg. Paraffin candles should be pure white and odorless. Thin wax candles are needed to apply specks to the egg shell.

Pencil
When making pysanka, a novice master first applies a pattern to the egg with a soft pencil and only then covers this pattern with wax. If the pencil is hard, then its mark will remain on the finished pysanka.

Tassels
You can apply wax to the egg with a pin, match, straw, nail head, burning candle, quill feather, steel poster pen and, of course, a homemade or factory-made brush. A homemade brush is a funnel-shaped tube 1 - 1.5 cm long rolled up from foil. The tube is attached using tow or thin copper wire on a wooden holder with a diameter of 8 mm and a length of 10-12 cm. There should be several such brushes. While working, they need to be dipped in melted wax. While you write to one, the others are waiting for their turn in hot wax. Excellent brushes are made of brass, the writing tip of which has a hole located strictly in the center. The thickness of the drawing lines depends on the diameter of the writing tip and the diameter of its hole. It is advisable to have a set of brushes for thick, thin and medium lines. How to use such a brush: heat the head of the brush over an open fire (candle, lamp, gas burner) and fill it with wax. To avoid blots, use a napkin to remove excess wax from the body of the brush and begin painting the egg.

Your tool doesn't write if:
- hold both the egg and the brush incorrectly. Take the egg in your left hand and the brush in your right. Press your elbows towards your body. The writing hand needs support, otherwise it will tremble. Place the little finger of your right hand on the surface of the egg. Using the fingers of your left hand, rotate the egg toward you, and draw the lines away from you, trying, if possible, not to change the position of your writing hand;
- the wax has cooled down. Warm the head of the brush without plunging the nose into the fire;
- the wax has run out. Fill the brush with wax;
- the brush is clogged. Warm up the head of the brush and clean the hole with a thin wire;
- an air lock has formed. Remove it by piercing the bubble with the same wire; - the nose of the brush is pressed firmly against the surface of the egg. Relieve tension from your writing hand;
- your hand has been in the wrong hands. The reason for this is someone else's handwriting.
An important rule: to avoid burns, when heating the brush, do not immerse the holder in the fire and do not bring the wax to a boil. After work, there is no need to remove the remaining wax from the brushes.

KRASHENKA

Heat food colors in a water bath. Boil the eggs over low heat and cool them. Light a thin wax candle and cover the egg with hot droplets of wax. Do not forget to rotate the egg and make sure that the droplets do not spread.
Paint the egg yellow and cover it again with drops of wax, and then bathe it in scarlet paint. Blot it, cover it with drops of wax, then repaint it yellow and dip it in green paint. Also drip some wax onto the green shell and paint your future paint a dark blue final color.
Now place the egg in a warm oven (100 ° C) or bring it to the fire, but do not immerse it in the flame. You can also use a hairdryer. When the wax on the egg melts, carefully remove it with a soft linen napkin. Krashenka-kapanka ready.

Repeat everything from the beginning, but around the wax droplets, draw petals, curls, rays with a brush, then the sun will shine on the paint, the flowers will bloom... If the wax droplet still flows, draw wings on it. A moth will flutter on the paint. Draw fins and the fish will swim.

For flour dye start your reservation not with white, but with yellow. Drop the wax droplets like scales, so that later the red pea peeks out from under the yellow one, the green one from under the yellow and red one... Instead of the final paint, immerse the egg in table vinegar diluted in half with water. After 20 minutes, remove the egg from the acid and wash with soap and cold water. Blot thoroughly. Melt the wax. Multi-colored polka dots, precisely engraved, will appear in relief on the white surface of the egg.

Dip an egg in yellow paint and then in red - you have a red egg or plain paint. Regardless of whether there is yellow in the pattern or not, the egg is initially painted with yellow paint. A plain paint will become “marbled” if you add a drop of vegetable oil to the paint or rub the shell with sandpaper before painting.

For iconic paint Make yourself a signet (poke) from a wooden stick with a diameter of 0.8 and a length of 10-12 cm and a small “shoe” nail with a round head. Heat the poke cap over a fire, dip it in wax and immediately apply a dot to the egg. From the dots you will get a “cross”, “circle”, “necklace”, “grapes”, “flower”...

Using a file, the round head of the poke can be turned into a triangular one. And then the pattern on the egg will not be made of dots, but of tiny wedges. Set the poke aside. With the nose of a properly heated brush, lightly tap the shell once or twice and, as soon as a drop of wax appears on the egg, without allowing it to cool, immediately turn it into a “comma”... When painting bird eggs for Easter, Western Slavs choose a “wedge” “comma”, “dot”, eastern and southern - prefer a line. As a rule, there is one magical sign on the paint. “Circles” or “crosses” are placed randomly on the surface of the egg. The iconic krashenka preceded the ritual pysanka.

Ornaments of ritual pysanka
The ornament of Easter eggs is symbolic. It is based on three cardinal symbols that reflect the vertical structure of the Universe: a circle, a square (or rhombus) and a center, the world axis, in the form of a cross, a tree, an 8-shaped sign. Hence there are three types of ornament: circular, key, braided:

The design of the ornament is called a pattern and is a grid formed from the intersection of circles and ovals encircling the egg. Ornamental forms - magical signs-symbols - are placed in the divorce fields. If the egg is divided in two vertically by a belt and mainly its sides are decorated, then such a pysanka is called a side pysanka. The main dividing belt can be in the form of a thread, a ribbon, decorated or undecorated. It may be absent altogether, but the principle of placement of the main ornamental forms is preserved. Thus, we have Easter eggs “belted” and “unbelted”. Divide the egg in half along the meridian, and then into four parts. The marks will be placed in the resulting segments of the egg, and such a pysanka will be called longitudinal based on the type of pattern. The “eight-round” pattern consists of eight spheroidal segments formed from four equal vertical lobes of the egg, surrounded by the equator line.

The main types of structures are connected by transitional connections. Suppose an ornamented belt divides the surface of the egg into two hemispheres vertically. Each of the resulting fields will be called large. A star, cross or tree can be inscribed in such a field. If large fields are interrupted along the equator, meridian, diagonal or radius, and ornamental forms, alternating or repeating, are placed in each of the resulting segments, then we get divorce-breaks. And everything here is subordinated to the idea of ​​the Universe, the structure and essence of the Universe.
The circular type divorce through the “field breaks” is followed by the “saddle bag” type divorce.

Ornamental forms are placed in the fields vertically, diagonally, radially, and segment. They alternate in a checkerboard pattern and are repeated. The same sign may be placed in opposite directions.

If the ornament as a whole is characterized by rhythm, then the ornaments of Easter eggs allow us to talk about tempo-rhythm. Ornamental forms based on a broken cross and swastika create the impression of movement - rotation of the two halves of the egg in opposite directions.

The craftswomen gave the Easter eggs names. The name was also a symbol, a talisman. Sometimes these were scarecrow names. By hiding the true name, evil spirits could not only be scared away, but also deceived. Thorny plants were also among the most powerful amulets. Among the names of Easter eggs, “rose” predominates: “rose with combs”, “rose with rakes”, “rose with little flowers”, “rose with infinity”, “empty rose”, “full rose”, “cross rose”, “guard rose” ", "dog rose", "mangy rose"... Over time, when the content of pagan symbols began to be forgotten, images of churches and church utensils appeared in the ornaments of Easter eggs, patterns were copied from vestments, hence the "throne" Easter eggs, "priest's vestments" , "golgota" (calvary), etc.

Ornamental motifs

It happened that the name of a ritual painted egg depended only on the name of one of the leading ornamental forms in the composition that determine the style of the Easter egg: “Windmills”, “Corners”, “Poppy”, “Dawns”, “Pannas”, “Pletenka”, “Bean” , “Spiders”, “Bird Paws”, “Bass Ear”, etc. Easter eggs ornaments have their own local characteristics, not to mention the fact that each craftswoman had her own handwriting. The style of pysanka is determined primarily by a set of certain means of expression. Ornamental forms were filled or framed with strokes and dots; in other cases we see the coloring of the fields, a combination of shading and dots, shading and coloring, shading and drops - a drop on a shaded field or outside it; simultaneous combination of dot, drop, blot and hatching; filling ornamental forms with a mesh, the so-called “silk writing”, a combination of mesh and drops, mesh and coloring. Color and the selection of paints play a significant role in the style of Easter eggs. The style of Easter eggs is also determined by the method of applying wax to the egg; the pattern can be made with a line, a wedge, a “comma” (“apple seed”).

You can see detailed illustrations of all types of ornaments in the appendix.

Pysanka mastery
Cooking Easter eggs is an activity that requires privacy and peace of mind. The most enjoyable thing is to paint a raw chicken egg. His defenselessness and fragility make every movement of the craftswoman’s hands careful, her touch gentle. And if you believe that the Universe is in your palms, that it is just as fragile and defenseless... Rotating the egg, you lightly massage the fingertips of your left hand, and the warmth of your soul penetrates into the future Easter egg. Dreams take wings. A wax line runs along the shell, braiding, encircling, protecting the egg. If your hand disobeys, do not scrape trying to correct the mistake. The pysanka is spoiled, don’t worry, cook it with fried eggs.
Before painting with wax, learn how to apply a design with a simple pencil and not on raw, but on boiled eggs. And remember that lines on a spherical surface are arcs. Guide them constantly in one direction, rotating the egg, either toward you or only away from you. A table of the design of the Easter eggs ornament is also included in the appendix to this article. So that the work does not seem boring to you, count the dividing belts. An odd number of belts gives an even number of fields.
If the drawing is copied correctly, try covering its lines with wax. The wax line should be long, then there will be few joints and they will be less noticeable. Grid lines can be bold; outlines of ornamental shapes, unless they include design lines, should be done with a brush No. 2, medium size. And for shading, brush No. 1 is suitable. It is better to start shading the wedge from the base and finish at the top. To prevent the strokes from “falling”, the belt must first be divided into squares. The same applies to the mesh. We cover the fields with wax, but not with strokes, but with a spiral, and the size of the brush that framed the field, otherwise the wax will lie unevenly on the shell, sometimes barely noticeable individual areas of the field will remain unprotected, and therefore unpainted in the color you need.
When you learn to divide the surface of the egg into fields and place a pattern in them, when the brush becomes submissive, take a raw, fresh chicken egg and start making pysanka. At the next stage of mastery, try making the same pattern in different styles. Avoid compasses and erasers, try to do without a pencil and do not put an elastic band on the egg. Support the writing hand, rotate the egg in one direction, the tip of the brush at a right angle to the working surface - and the line will be excellent. If your hand trembles a little from excitement, it’s not scary and even not bad: the drawing will be alive, because dry, cold geometry tires the eye.
Pysanka - magic or science? Pysanka is first and foremost an art. But the one who created Easter eggs knew brilliantly

Researchers believe that the Ukrainian pysanka has more than a hundred symbolic designs. Of course, with the advent of stickers, the process of preparing for Easter has become much easier, but the festive spirit disappears somewhere.

People painted eggs even before the advent of Christianity. In Slavic culture, the egg symbolized the sun. With the introduction of Christianity, the symbolism of Easter eggs changed somewhat; now it is a symbol of joy and faith in the resurrection of Christ.

According to one version, Mary Magdalene presented the first Easter egg to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. When she announced the Resurrection of Christ, the emperor said that it was as impossible as a chicken egg being red, and after these words the egg he was holding became red.

Easter eggs are given to each other, they were used to “roll out” illnesses, and in villages the shells were thrown on the roof of the hut “for good luck.” To ensure a good harvest, they were rolled over green wheat and buried in the ground, and on the morning after Easter, the girls washed themselves with water, into which they had previously placed eggs and silver coins, which were supposed to give strength and beauty.

Even the color the eggs were painted had its own meaning. Elderly people were given eggs of dark colors, because their life was coming to an end, children - green or blue, young people were given red, because they would continue their family line on earth, the owners of the house where they were going to visit - yellow, with the wish of a good harvest and prosperity.

The paint had to be made with water taken from three sources; along the way you couldn’t talk to anyone, look at anyone or turn around.

Dyes were mainly prepared according to ancient recipes from plants. The green color was given by sunflower seeds or snowdrops, the brown color was given by the bark of alder or oak, and the yellow color was made from the branches or bark of a wild apple tree.

According to the technique of execution, pysanky are divided into “speckled eggs” - eggs covered with colored spots against a background of a different color; Easter eggs themselves - painted with wax with various decorative patterns; "scrobanks" - or "rags". There are also just paints. Moreover, if krashenka is always a boiled egg, then pysanky, as a rule, were made from raw eggs or simply on a shell with pre-blown contents. In villages people did not keep Easter eggs for themselves, but gave them to neighbors and acquaintances.

A pysanka is an egg decorated with a traditional design that is passed down from generation to generation. The patterns are drawn with hot wax using a special device - a pisachka. The lines are drawn one after another, in the process the egg is colored.

Speckling is one of the options when wax is dripped onto the shell in a random order.

In Eastern Polesie, one of the oldest methods of pysankar-making has been preserved - “rags” or “skrobanks”. An egg, previously painted in a dark color, is scratched with a metal tip or needle to obtain the desired ornament.

Our ancestors preferred agricultural motifs, customs and rituals of honoring the earth, heavenly bodies, and water. Everything that decorates a pysanka has its own meaning.

Symbols of the Sun are a circle, a circle with dots, a circle with a cross inside or rays outside, six- and eight-rayed stars. Easter eggs with such patterns were most often given to boys and children. They were painted in bright colors on a red background.

The symbol of water is wavy lines, which are called meander, infinity, crooked. It was believed that the absence of such a symbol on a pysanka is a sign of misfortune. Beekeepers placed such eggs under the hives so that the bees would swarm well.

The colorful dots that covered the egg were considered symbols of fertility. The ancestors believed that such a gift would help a woman get pregnant and give birth safely.

Good luck in work and creativity was attracted by the diamonds that were drawn on the eggs. Sick people were presented with Easter eggs with patterns in the form of fish, which symbolized health and fertility.

Horses and deer were depicted on Easter eggs - symbols of sunrise and sunset. They should help disperse stagnant energies and activate vital forces.

The head of the family was given an egg with a pattern of oak leaves and acorns, since they were symbols of masculinity.

They also drew birds. The rooster was considered a conductor of the sun and a guard against evil, while doves were considered a symbol of love, fidelity and harmony. The bird's footprint was also a talisman, like the handprint of the pagan Sun god, who in ancient times was associated with a bird. One of the patterns is called "God's Hand".

One of the most popular Slavic symbols is the Tree of Life. They depicted a cherry, viburnum, and apple tree. The grapevine motif meant fidelity, the plums - wisdom and health.

The cross symbolizes the creation of the world. The vertical line of the cross means heaven, spirituality, the horizontal line means the earth, its feminine principle. The cross is eternal life, since it is infinite.

The triangle is also often found in ornaments as a symbol of the trinity of the world - earth, water and fire. They also drew so-called rakes, which belong to the symbols associated with water. The ancestors believed that in dry weather such a pattern would help bring about the long-awaited rain.

Christian motifs were introduced by monks who painted eggs in monasteries.

There is a belief that when you receive your first Easter egg as a gift in the morning, you must make a wish. And if love and faith reign in the heart, it will come true.