Duck Eggs

‘Duck Eggs’. Oil on linen, 8″ x 6″

I painted these duck eggs (in a white ceramic egg holder) over an old figure study that wasn’t worth keeping hold of. I intended this to be a high-key painting, with subtle, pale hues conveying a sense of calm. Instead, I painted something kind of sludgy and not altogether tranquil.

I think my biggest problems came from working directly on top of the other painting. I couldn’t judge the tonal relationships very well from the outset, and it’s something that I fundamentally couldn’t pull back around. Disappointed in the finished piece, I wavered over whether to post it on Instagram. In the end I decided to go with it, and surprisingly it received a lot of likes and nice comments. It just goes to show that you can’t really second guess the response to your own work.