Starting with breakfast in the shadows

I mentioned some time ago that I would share a different way to paint your shadows. I like and prefer to add shadows while I am painting because I like the magic that happens when the paints mix on the paper. Sometimes I apply them to a dry painted surface so I can better control the mixing and sometimes, although rare, I do pre-paint my shadows. Many artists do this and so I thought I would show you one way to do it so you can try it and practice. You need to find your preferred method for shadows and that only comes with practice.

Most of you know that I often start my day by painting my breakfast. I was getting very bored with that since my breakfast is often the same thing and can get boring both to paint and to eat! On this morning I decided to do the shadows first so here is my process.

 I started by sketching my cereal bowl with Cheerios and bananas. Once I got my angles right I was ready to start painting.

I do my rolling eraser trick and remove most of the pencil lines and then started painting with cobalt blue. Cobalt Blue is considered a medium blue.

Once I had the blue painted in and it was completely dry I started to paint the Cheerios. 

As you can see I added the bowl color along with the bananas and the spoon. I left the white in the middle of the cereal to represent milk and it works. I also added some darker blue to some of the areas to make them more defined. 

I then finished up with a background and I might have added text, not sure. Let me know if you try this method and what you think. Its always safe to experiment with Cheerios, they are good for you!