Midwest Eggs
I recently ran across a beautiful 19th century illustration of eggs that inspired me to create my own version based on my birding experiences here in the Midwest. I have always been fascinated by natural history illustrations and was even a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators several years ago. I began the design process by enumerating all of the bird species commonly seen in my backyard, including those commonly seen flying overhead. I also envisioned a series of prints available for other regions, like the Rocky Mountains where I used to call Missoula, Montana home (sigh!).
In order to begin the project, I needed a solid reference of egg sizes and colorations. Luckily I found a very handy reference in Mark Hauber’s The Book of Eggs: A Life-Size Guide to the Eggs of Six Hundred of the World's Bird Species (link to Kindle version) which served as an invaluable guide during this part of the project. The book contains over 600 species of birds’ egg from around the world and was only missing three of the 60-something individual species I selected for the project; the Bullock’s Oriole, Western Tanager, and Steller’s Jay specimens. I double-checked the dimension listed in the book against the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website and was pleased to find agreement on nearly all of the egg dimensions. This was the first hurdle crossed, now on the actual design process.
Design Process
The first step of the design process was to create a Master Egg. This shape could then be used as the basis for the majority of the eggs illustrated with a few of the eggs (like Killdeer eggs and some of the birds of prey) being a bit straighter-sided or oval, but these could be modified on an as-needed basis.
The Master Egg
Once I had the master completed, I then had to create a layout of all of the eggs I would need for the project. I decided on a layout organized by size beginning with the smallest egg (Ruby-throated Hummingbird) and ending with the largest egg (Turkey Vulture was the largest in the Midwest since my original choice of Sandhill Crane is not a permanent resident). This master layout had the eggs scaled to life-sized version and was the basis for the final illustrations.
The master outlines of the Small Eggs
I quickly realized that the smallest eggs were simply to small to paint effectively and would need to be scaled to 200% of their life-size in order to include the details I wanted to create. This was simply a matter of scaling the original outlines, reprinting the master images and using these as the basis for transferring to the watercolor paper using acetate.
Once the outlines were transferred to watercolor paper the fun could finally begin. I spent the next several days painting the 35 eggs chosen for the project, some more than once.
The Painting Process
Master illustrations of the small eggs painted at 200% of life size
As you can see in the illustrations, the eggs weren’t perfect, not did they need to be. This is where the true magic of the layout process began. I took the scanned images into my design program of choice (Affinity Designer) and create a mask for each of the eggs to help them look symmetrical. This was where the slight variations in the egg shapes could really be sculpted and modified without the painstaking task of creating perfect ovoids on each an every master image. This is where illustration differs from fine art where any modification of the original can sometimes be seen as a corruption.
The masking process
The Layout Process
Once all the eggs were masked, it was the simple but tedious process of fine-tuning the layout on the page including the header, labels, and identifier key at the bottom. I initially had the common and scientific names underneath all of the eggs but it appeared cluttered and really needed to be simplified. I changed to a simple label and moved all of the common names to the key at the bottom. I think this cleaned up the design and allowed for the viewer to concentrate on the eggs themselves. Overall, I really like how the final piece turned out.
Final Egg Layout
There is already a second version of this print for the Rocky Mountains Region that I will be updating soon. Both prints are available as an 11” x 15-3/4” images, perfect for a 16”x20” mat and frame size. They are created on archival 100% cotton rag fine art paper printed with pigment-based archival inks. The cost is $50.00 USD plus an additional $8.00 shipping & handling (continental U.S. only additional shipping for international addresses). You can use the form below if you are interested in purchasing one.