How painting an egg can help your art...

Well, it’s a busy time…when isn’t it?!

Currently surrounded by tottering mountains of boxes, suitcase and ridiculous piles of pillows that insist on cascading across the flat anytime anyone so much as looks at them. This chaos? The youngest is off to college in the raucous and unique city of Glasgow. Coupled with weeks of temperatures the likes have never been felt in the North East of Scotland where the summer high is considered heat-stroke worthy at a staggering 18ºC - we have hit 30ºC twice this summer!! Plus all the exhibition madness…I’m feeling a touch frazzled.

At the point where I have a million projects in my head but lacking the focus or energy to martial them into something workable. Do you find that when there is too much stimulus then the creative brain simply spins in circles?

So after re-ordering the studio and staring into space for a bit I decided I needed to go back to painting 101.

It’s so useful to stop, observe, and remember the pleasure of a creating simple form in paint.

Why an egg? It may seem like a rather simple thing to paint; however, it is much trickier than it first appears! Painting spherical or oval objects well usually takes a bit of practice. It encourages you to look really carefully at light and shadow as well as subtle changes in value.

Now because I hadn’t thought about sharing this I didn’t take any progress shots…ahem! So, here is the final piece.

If you would be interested I am more than happy to create a proper Paint-An-Egg demo with all the steps.

I also, tackled a wee cup. Excuse the wibbly bits I was quite tired and good ol’ Parkinson’s tends to kick into action at this point…making brush control a little tough! But again a great exercise in light and shadows.