The humble egg

What better time than Easter to feature this truly amazing food, symbol, shape…

There’s something very satisfying about painting an egg, being able to convey its form, the roundness and the simplicity of it and while I paint I think about how wondrous an egg actually is. At a basic level it is an everyday food, how do you like your eggs, boiled, poached, fried, scrambled, in an omelette, raw for a hangover, in mayonnaise, whipped white and solid with sugar in a meringue, in custard? Cakes, pancakes and yorkshire puddings wouldn’t rise without them, they thicken sauces, they sit like the sun inside the planet of a scotch egg, they glaze and bond layers of pastry. Crème brûlée, crème caramel and zabaglione wouldn’t exist without them and the world would be a much poorer place.

Painting with, of and on eggs

Until oil paints were invented, egg was used as the binding agent for pigments. The Sistene Chapel ceiling is painted with egg tempera. Eggs have been depicted in paintings for centuries. Above is a painting from 1580 by Georg Flegel. Cezanne even painted over one of his own portraits with a still life of bread and eggs! Monet painted eggs. Warhol did too…

The egg shape is very strong and yet a raw egg’s shell is easily cracked. Winemakers have created fermenters in an egg shape because of the way the juice can move around and flow as there are no hard edges or corners.

At Easter time eggs themselves are painted on by children. Eggs are a symbol of life, hope and new beginnings. I have painted eggs a few times now - you can see one above in a silver egg cup that was a christening gift to me, which seems very appropriate. There is one on my website on a canvas board only 6 inches square and I have another in the studio that’s on a cradled canvas. Plus one with a yellow yolk on a purple background that I don’t like haha! Contact me if interested.

On the Easel…

No eggs on the easel. I’ve been painting some watercolours recently as I was on holiday and they are so much more portable. A painting of Pulteney Bridge in Bath, the Roman Baths (as I’m at an art fair in Bath on 14th May - do come and see me), some hollyhocks, a postbox set in a Cotswold stone wall. They aren’t all on the website yet.

There is currently 25% off all prints on my website using code WNBJ3P8X79X6 ending this week. I am trying to build my followers and could do with your help so please share my content if you like it. Happy Easter everyone!

Susan