This month on the oil pastel forum of Wetcanvas (an online artist community) I am the sponsor of the February monthly challenge. One of my roles was to select seven to ten photographed images from a variety of subjects for artists to paint using oil pastels as the primary medium.
I am painting a number of the subjects myself, I’m working on a landscape tha’s interesting and exciting – hope to post in the next day or two.
In the meantime I wanted to share with you the first challenge I painted, a still life of eggs. To change it up I decided to paint the eggs white without using white. This was a first for me in both painting eggs and simulating white. The experiment was interesting enough that I plan to paint the eggs again using primarily yellows, ochre and silver-grays.
Is there any bacon in the house?
White Eggs
Oil Pastels by Mary 
Incredible eggs! Thanks for the recent visit and like.
Hi!! Thanks so much for visiting, I really appreciate your kind words! Mary
i love the amazing nuances of color; well done!
i rarely see white eggs, and when i am back in the usa, i often do a double take when i see white eggs!
Hi Lisa, thank you so much. I think I was getting carried away with the colors, but it was fun getting to the end. I’m looking forward to doing the eggs again! I’ll bet there are a million things in the States that you do double-takes on, could even be electric grids and connectors based on your latest post – ha, ha! Mary
so true. i mentioned to someone last night that once, when i landed in little rock, arkansas, my nephew drove me into the city. my jaw all but dropped when i looked up at the sky and saw the criss-cross of chem trails… i don’t see those, thankfully, where i live in ecuador or in costa rica!
on my first few days back, i try to stay in a hotel and adjust to a faster pace of life, interact with people who all speak english, read magazines and newspapers and try to catch up, then i take a trip to a walmart or large center and just walk through at a very slow pace and stare.. at everything! i absorb what’s new, what the prices are, look at all of the music, books… and i smile….
white socks! new running shoes! workout clothes and sports bras! new music!! new books! clothes that actually fit me! (i’m quite tall, and large sizes here are like a small, so i look like i’m trying to be an ageing porn queen!)
i wonder if i can find a sponsor for my next trip back!!! and then there are ‘tools’ even nice garden clippers and weather stripping and.. oh yes, there are a million things that catch my eye!
i love to open my friends’ and family’s refrigerators, and i just stare… CHEESE! five varieties! Cervesas! several varieties! Pickles! Olives! Salami! Bacon!
most of those items are available here, but they are in the big cities and are usually expensive. good sharp cheeses are rarely found…
and yes, white eggs shock my senses!
Mary your work is just precious precious!
Thank you so much for your comment. I never thought I’d paint eggs, so this was a surprisingly pleasant experience.
Lovely depth with blue hues.
Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pure white egg; in fabric colors, eggshell is never a white-white.
Thank you Marylin so much, it’s great to hear from you. You’re so right. The photograph of eggs used for this painting had a warm light on them and the colors tended toward beige and golden range. It was an interesting experiment working with blues.
I love this! It makes the eggs look really abstract and interesting.
Wonderful White!
Thank you so much Elena!
Great painting, without using white to paint white eggs !
Hi Petronette! Thanks so much, I have a few color combinations I want to try out – but will wait until I finish with several other projects.
Excellent!!!
Thank you so much!!!
Amazingly well done!
Hi Cindy, thank you very much – if ever there was a challenge this was it. So much appreciated!
This is beautiful. With the soft curves and gentle color. Makes me want to go and make some soft boiled eggs.
Great comment, couldn’t stop smiling! Thank you so much, I do have several more variations planned but have to complete a few other paintings waiting in the wings. It became an interesting experiment with colors – that I love.
At least you are not putting all your eggs in one basket.
And these eggs are all fantastically ‘not white.’ They are eggs, correction–they are super eggs. Behold, I teach you the Over-egg (a not so obscure reference to Nietzsche, who actually, come to think of it, probably liked eggs–white or simulated white).
Oh how funny – Ariel’s Prospero! Thank you and I’ll bet our philosopher, Nietzsche would like the eggs. Your readings provide you with the most fantastic imagination – wonderful!
I love to see how others interpret white I have to admit I find it difficult ! Those are too nice to make into an omelette Mary 😉
Can I ask you what sort of paper do you use for oil pastels ??
Hi Poppy: Thank you so much – I’m still looking for the bacon!
Good question, as I don’t normally use paper when painting with oil pastels – when I do it’s a heavy weighted watercolor paper so it will hold the clear gesso that I apply for tooth. Usually I use hardboard that I prepared with several coats of gesso and clear gesso, or Ampersand Board for it’s great tooth.
Let me know if you have any additional questions. Thanks and take care, Mary
Thanks for that Mary I was wondering about the how they look so smooth ! I’m not sure whether I would venture in to oils yet but what you do with them is amazing . I’m playing around with ideas and experimenting …
Thank you Poppy and I hope you do give them a go. Be sure to use artist quality (soft) oil pastels as they blend much easier than the student quality which has more wax.
Sometimes, the simplest things are the most beautiful. 🙂
Thank you so much and that’s very true!
Very nice and delicate, Mary!
Great job!
Thank you, appreciate it! I’ve got to say it was an interesting experiment painting colors of value for effect and not for exactness.
I was thinking about drawing some eggs to go along with a story.
Hope you go for it!