The Story of Watercolor Eggs

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Patti's fondness for eggs came from two pet Rhode Island Red chickens. Picking up a still-warm, freshly-laid egg, feeling the smoothness of the shell and pressing the warmth against her cheek, she'd marvel at the miracle of this unique little package of life designed by nature. She found herself studying the different shapes, sizes, and colors of eggs from these chickens, the future chickens she had, and years later the chickens of friends. She'd spot a torpedo-shaped or very large round egg while gathering eggs and try to guess which hen had laid it.

Patti painted her first egg--a white grocery store egg--in 1977 as an Easter gift for her mother. It started out as just an ink drawing resembling the look of a scrimshaw--the blackened, engraved designs in ivory. But since it was to be an "Easter egg," she thought it needed some color. She chose the subtlety of watercolors to fill in between the black lines that formed a hummingbird feeding from a honeysuckle bloom. That first egg was created with a quill pen dipped in India ink and paint from a dimestore paintbox.

Patti created eggs as gifts for her family and it wasn't long before family friends saw the eggs and made requests to purchase some. The eggs were limited to the grocery store variety until one day, while browsing through a magazine, she saw a small ad from a hatchery that sold emptied whole goose eggs. Her enthusiasm took over and she purchased two cases--180 eggs!

It's been almost 30 years since the painting of that first egg. Patti now paints on eggs ranging in size from quail to ostrich, with the majority being goose.      to page 2