Evelyn's drawings are enlightening. They reveal her skill, but also help us to understand her working process. She developed loose compositional sketches to detailed life studies of figures. Grey or brown paper was usually the base for her pencil and pastel. Her double studies of clothed and nude figures are particularly fascinating. In these we see her obsession with the human form and desire for accuracy.

De Morgan also produced exquisite studies of details. Faces, hands and feet were also studied at length to ensure realism.

It is clear that once she chose a composition and posed the model and studied, De Morgan rarely deviated from her concept. Scrutiny of the extant oil paintings proves this point. There is very little reworking or over painting. Complex compositions and ambitious attention to detail in the paintings makes this astonishing.

As a final element to her working process, De Morgan executed detailed compositional studies. We can consider these as works of art in their own right and Evelyn often sold them as such.

De Morgan usually painted on prepared canvases in oil paint, which is a long-standing convention. She did however paint some oil on wooden panel pictures. She also experimented with a technique called 'the process' which her husband invented.

De Morgan's early work defies the Aestheticism it is stylistically similar to. Usually this art was only beautiful and devoid of meaning. However, De Morgan used the style, but chose narrative subjects. Subverting this status quo allowed her to address social issues in an acceptable way. Night and Sleep (1878) features the personified forms of night and sleep in a typical Aesthete dreamlike landscape. Including bright red poppies that dominate the visual space clearly comments on the Opium Wars and the Laudanum crisis.

Her large jewel-like pictures with minute attention to detail look Pre-Raphaelite. However, her depiction of Rossetti's favoured model Jane Morris as an old woman pondering the passing of time in The Hourglass (1905) ridicules the Brotherhood's objectification of women.

De Morgan exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and New Gallery in London. MPs like Sir Charles Dilke bought her pictures. Her popularity was such that she held a solo exhibition in London in 1906 and in Wolverhampton in 1907. This achievement was an unprecedented success for a female artist at that time.

De Morgan became involved in many of the leading issues of the day. Prison reform, pacifism and spiritualism were all ills in society her pictures addressed. She was also involved with Suffrage movement. In 1889 she added her name to the "Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage".

Her social consciousness is most notable in her pacifist paintings. In 1916 she exhibited these in her studio to raise funds for British Red Cross and the Italian Crocce Rosa. Rainbows, stars and olive branches feature in these pictures to portray peace.