Ostrich Eggs

Nina has painted with me since 2004 and its always fun painting with her. She always paints with a purpose. Once she wanted to paint a plaque for her chef husband for his birthday, so I taught her how to faux finish a woodgrain on an MDF plaque then decoupaged the picture of a chef and wrote her husband’s name on it.

Another time, her husband had bought her a traditional Italian long-handled pizza board and she wanted to transform it into something for her home in Lebanon. I taught her an Austrian bridal painting design and the pizza board now hangs in her home welcoming her friends and family into her home.

The most creative project yet was a plate she painted for her son who wanted to give to his girlfriend. He chose the picture – two clown fish swimming among some coral – and the cutest caption… “If you’re a fish, I’m a fish”! That’s a project I’ll never forget. It was fun teaching her to paint that and she certainly had a lot of fun painting it.

This week Nina wanted to paint an ostrich egg which had been fitted with a light fixture. She wanted to give it as a gift to a girlfriend and later wanted to paint another egg for herself. That’s a great way to learn by the way – paint the same project two times! We brainstormed on the subject to paint and finally decided to paint a landscape. We chose a lighthouse design.

Painting on an egg can seem a daunting task because of its shape. You have to basically hold it all the time and keep turning it as you paint it.

There is a way to paint it without holding it and that is to place the egg in a soup dish lined with a folded face towel. But some students including Nina find holding the egg just fine.  Its really not that difficult once you get the hang of it.

Whatever the surface we paint on the painting technique remains the same.

For this lighthouse project we first painted the sky, followed by the sea then the foreground.

Once that was completed, we painted the background trees and foreground trees, followed by the lighthouse and all its decoration. Lastly of course we paint other elements that complete the picture – in this case some trees and of course, seagulls.

This was a unique project and certainly a first in my Studio. But I’m sure other students will want to try their hand at this after seeing the finished piece.