(gentle music) - The Pysanky egg tradition, that goes way back.

It's way over 1,000 years old.

Here you have an egg with a shell, so it represents the tomb.

You've got the the shell, the white, and the yoke.

It represents the Trinity.

A lot of the ways that they decorate the Pysanky have these symbols of new life on them.

- It takes anywhere probably from six to 10 hours to do one Pysanka from the start to the finish.

Every egg is extremely special.

You cannot make two eggs identical.

The egg starts out to be a white chicken egg.

The egg can never be washed because the egg has a film on it for the dyes to adhere to.

The eggs are hollow.

I use a syringe to take the yolks out and then rinse it out.

I'm gonna put some lines on it.

You wanna use a pencil that's really a lightweight lead because the only way this lead is gonna come off is when you're taking the wax off the egg.

If you can erase it or just put minimal, that's the best.

So I got my stylus, my kiska, and it has a funnel that you put wax in it.

You put bees wax because it'll adhere to the egg the best.

Since I emptied the egg, there's a hole on top.

I have to cover that hole up with wax because I don't want dyes to be in the egg.

It'd be a mess.

It's all covered up, gonna start my lines.

Gonna follow more or less my pencil lines.

Once I cover everything I want white, you can dab it with blue, green or purple and they're intense, very concentrated dyes, so you can use a toothpick and you'll just dab those areas that you want that color.

Just let it adhere for a little bit and then just take it off with Kleenex or a napkin, but be careful not to spread out of the lines.

So I've got blue in that area and I would go throughout the whole egg that I want blue.

Now you have to cover that area with wax so it doesn't go onto a different color.

Once I have all those areas covered with wax, I put it in my yellow dye.

You go from the lightest to the darkest.

So you go yellow, orange, red, and black.

Now you know the egg is hollow, so that means it's really light.

I use two spoons and I use the lid and then I have a cement to put on there.

Let that dye for about 15 minutes, 10 minutes.

So let's say that process is all done.

Take it out carefully.

There we go.

Get some napkins.

Dab it carefully.

And now I continue to cover everything I want yellow.

Okay, so I covered everything I want yellow.

I would put this egg into my orange dye.

I took my egg out of the orange dye and now I wanna cover everything I want orange.

Then I would put my orange egg into my red dye for about 10, 15 minutes.

Take it out of my red dye and cover everything I want red.

I covered everything I want red, so then I put the red egg into my black dye.

I take that out of the black dye and that's my final process and that's what it's gonna look like.

Then I put it in a plate in the oven.

Set the oven maybe 250, just barely warm.

Let it preheat for a few minutes.

Put the egg on the plate with the cloth.

If you don't uncover that hole, the heat in the oven will make the egg blow up 'cause the heat expands.

So once I'm in the oven, I'll take the wax off slowly and try to undo this hole the best I could.

Set the oven back on 210 and just take the wax off slowly back and forth.

It takes half an hour.

So then my wax is all off and here's my egg.

From the white egg to the completed egg.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.