Sketching an Egg

Author: Michele Weston/Widry, Contributing Editor

This may not be as easy as it sounds! I used a 4~H and a 6~B pencil and worked on a 100% cotton rag paper, but you do not need to get special materials for this exercise! A standard #2 pencil and any paper you have at hand will work fine. Optional: set an egg on a piece of white paper and put a lamp nearby so you can really get a look at the light and shadows on the egg.

The object of this exercise is to draw an egg using no "lines". Instead, use only the flat side of your pencil to create lights and darks i.e. a gradient value sketch. The white of the paper becomes veryimportant here, erasers and smudging tools (including your fingers) are helpful in creating very soft edges. You may find yourself lifting the pencil to a "writing position", just put it back down to the "flat position" :)

This position feels like holding a knife, but do not use a cutting motion with your hand. Think of scraping the top of a stick of butter.

Very lightly begin by shading, placing your egg where it will be on the page. Keeping the direction your light source is coming from in mind, start working on the shadow beneath the egg and define the outer edges of it.

. I sometimes place a "dot" on my paper to use as a reference point representing my light source. I did this egg at approximately the actual size of a chickem egg and worked without a "model". Continue sketching building up the darker areas until you feel you are done. There should be a small area left white for the highlight.

I hope this exercise is useful to some of you. Please e-mail me if you have any questions or comments. Michele Weston/Widry - kemshmi@artistnation.com