I’ve really enjoyed looking at the paintings that have come from the eggshells painting project, which show how much can be done with such a apparently simple subject, from delicate realism to bold abstraction to letting your imagination run.
By Bee: “These are my egg shells in oil; I found this quite tricky.” From Marion: “Eggshells are a deceptively simple subject! I think you’ve done the subject justice, and it’s a striking painting that dances between still life realism and abstract.”By Karen “This is my second attempt; I changed the direction of the brush strokes as Marion suggested after my first attempt, and it works. I enjoyed the challenge of painting a white egg on white paper. The duck egg blue is too blue I know but it’s such a happy colour that I’ve left it as it is . I enjoyed this challenge and liked finding the detail in such a simple composition.”By Sarah, ink and watercolourFrom Julie: Yes, quite a literal trio of eggshells. My aim was to create the light and shade from the warm lamp above them. (I am limited to what the Airbnb offers in the way of lighting.) I also tried to show the reflected colour from the green chopping board on the shells, although I changed the colour to olive green. I intended to have one eggshell as the focus, but I tended to forget about that as I progressed. I used only coloured pencils for this drawing.Julie’s setupBy Julie: I was trying to create a sculpture with more emphasis on the shape than that they were eggshells. I intended to limit the tones, but I didn’t. I used graphite pencils ranging from 2B, 4B, 8B, 9B and pen.From JulieFrom Julie: Here are Ruby and Mabel’s eggs, or, at least their shells. Ruby and Mabel belong to the host of the cottage we stayed at in a rainforest in Queensland. I had planned a light approach, but was a little heavy handed. I wanted to show light and shadow. I also planned a pleasing, realistic shape. Hopefully, I did not achieve this, or I pity one of the chickens. By Cathi: “This was far more difficult than i thought it was going to be! I treated myself to three water-soluble graphite colours so I was basically playing with them. I was using A4 sketch paper/newsprint to see how the water would cope and it did remarkably well!.By Cathi: “This was my favourite ….. it manages to make the eggshell seem much more delicate.”By Eddie: “I tend to struggle with still life since it requires accurate drawing which is not my forte. I did this several times in pencil and Pierre Noire and these two are probably the best efforts. I then went on to do it in gouache.”
From Marion: “The observation from doing the drawings has certainly paid off, in terms of shape, colour, tone, and the choice of gouache gives that matte colour and texture of eggshells.”By EddieBy Eddie, gouache.By Erika: “What an interesting subject matter! So simple and yet, it can make your mind spin in different directions!! The colour spectrum that gets picked up by the white/brown eggshells is amazing, depending on the light source. This prompted the second picture and became a collage. The last one, going back to a simple white egg was just fun.”By ErikaBy Erika
My eggshell paintings: I struggled with the curves and ellipses on my eggshells, making them too narrow and pointy, or flat. This led to the in-house art critic creating a “how to draw an egg” cheatsheet for me, which I shared with project subscribers on Patreon here. This was my best attempt, which I think is a bit weird, and the egg’s floating:
Acrylics, watercolour, coloured pencil on watercolour paper.
Moving my duck eggshells one morning to have another go at a painting, I suddenly noticed the pattern and lines with them stacked, and was far more inspired by this. The result isn’t perfect, but has possibilities.
Pencil and watercolour, in my sketchbook.I like it more cropped like this, as a more abstracted arrangement of pattern and gentle colour variations.
From Julie-Ann: “Looking through the projects I saw this cute mouse and he looked so easy to do. Best of all it’s my first ever real drawing of an animal and I think it turned out great.”
From Marion: “It certainly did!”
My thanks to everyone who’s shared their paintings for us all to enjoy. Remember, it’s never too late to tackle any of the monthly painting projects. You’ll find the full list, with links to all the associated content, here.
