I'm hoping this is going to be a very simple easy one - but Google is not helping me at all!
I read a book (it might have even been a short story) when I was younger (90s/2000s) and now the only thing I can remember about it is the below:
Female protagonist starts going to an art class, where the assignment is to paint a white egg on a white background. The teachers guidance is 'draw what you see, not what you know' and she struggles with doing so over the course of the book/story, until she finally gets it at the end and manages to draw the egg - seeing the colours within the white of the egg, the colour of the sheen off the lighting, the shadow where the egg rests.
I don't think the egg was the central story, I think she was grappling with something emotionally and this was her 'breakthrough'
I remember so little about this book, but the egg and 'draw what you see, not what you know' has stuck with me!
Does anyone out there recognise this and can tell me where it's from?