Farm Fresh Eggs in pastel

Deb Richardson, artist and teacher at Cordovan Art School at Jerry's Artarama in Austin, brought fresh, colorful eggs from her sister's hen house for us to paint this evening. These are done in pastel on taupe ampersand board. I really prefer ampersand board to pastel papers - is easier for me to get a good base of pastel down and build on it.This is the first time that I have ever laid in a black background on a pastel and Deb had us lay the background in first. I was pleased with the piece. Robert thought the shadow to the left of the brown egg looked like another egg and originally I had it a bit darker and more "shadow" colored but there was a lot of blue reflected in the actual shadow so Deb suggested that I  put more blue in the shadow. It is really fun to capture the highlights in pastel as there is such  luminosity to them. Everyone in the class had a lovely finished piece this evening. Deb has us draw eggs to practice for portrait painting- the shapes in eggs certainly mimic the rounds in cheeks, noses, chins. 
Next Monday, we change over from pastels to watercolor for a month and I am looking forward to learning new techniques for my watercolors from Deb.