Friday Challenge- Lets paint breakfast

Good Morning!!! Rise and shine, let paint our breakfast! I love to have my coffee and breakfast right next to my sketchbook in the morning. I know I have posted my breakfast sketches before but you can never have enough practice, right!? There is no better way to start the day than with a good sketch! Every sketch makes you better and better. 

First I sketch in my breakfast quickly. It important to make sure my ovals are correct depending on my angles. Those ovals have a way of tripping you up in a sketch or painting. If they aren't right your eye will catch it every time you look at the painting. Your brain will say that isn't right! So pay special attention to those ovals. Depending on your angle, the more over the bowl I am, the more round the opening, being a complete circle if I was looking directly down on it. The more off to the side you are the more of an oval it becomes, here is my quick sketch to help you understand what I am saying. Looking directly down over the bowl you see the bottom and a circle, then as you come down the side you see more of an oval top until you are directly along side and see a straight line, then once you travel below the horizon you see the under side of the bowl so the oval is about the same only your view isn't of the inside but of the backside. I hope this helps you when you are drawing anything with a circle like glasses, bowls, cups, etc. 

So I started with my cereal bowl, defining the shapes.

Next I painted the shadow areas, or negative areas around the items. Notice that the shadows are all the same intensity. Make sure you are reading you shadow values too! Let each layer dry or your paint will blend and you will have a mess! It shouldn't take too long.

I now am adding the color on my Cheerios and adding some more dark browns in the shadow areas. The pre applied blue shadow helps to give depth to your first layers of color.

I continue to add color to the bowl and spoon

I add some more shadows, leaving some light areas and add a background. My page is either ready to journal on or I could add a few Cheerios to the page beside this one and use it as the text page if I have a lot to say this morning!

So here is what we went over today:

1. Ovals, get them right

2. laying in shadows first, taking note of softer and stronger shadows.

3. Using color to define shapes and tell more of the story.

I want to challenge you this week to put these three things into practice as you sketch your breakfast this week! I can't wait to see what your eating in the mornings!!! Happy Painting

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!

Journaling Daily Practice, where do I begin?

In our class we talk a lot about keeping a daily journal. About writing down some thoughts, insights etc but also about the importance of spending time practicing sketching and painting. These daily trips into our sketchbooks don't need to be a dreaded experience, worrying about what to paint and what to write. At first it may seem forced and awkward but I promise it gets better and easier. It will become more organic and natural to spend time with yourself if you allow it to happen. I thought I would give you a good place to start, at breakfast! Start sketching your breakfast, even if it's just your coffee cup. It's all about practice. Then write down what you had, date the page and comment if it's your favorite etc. 

Here's my breakfast yesterday, gave it a fun background and added dots and a border. I will be putting together a video on starting with your shadows and posting it soon.

- Desiree