"Guava Pastries"

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"Pasteles de Guayaba"

8 x 10 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

This is my first painting into pastries, this has to be my most favorite pastries to eat.  I love everything about them I can literally eat 20 of these a day, which is a good thing I don't.  They're called guava pastries or "pasteles de guayaba" in spanish, one of the main reasons why I miss Miami is because of these guys.  This painting is paying homage to these amazing treats, and yes I enjoyed eating every bit of them when I was done painting them!

I started with the traditional approach I do of using no mediums and a bit of raw umber for the draw in stage.  Then I concentrate on adding the local color and making the bigger forms turn even in the shadows.  I used deep cadmium red, cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre pale, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and very little ivory black.  I tried straying away from using ivory black with the shadows, I liked the results so far although when I painted the base for the cast shadow I primarily used ivory black ooooops! ;)

After establishing the local colors and having the form turning I then added smaller forms or the details.  This was a very tricky area to paint you have to paint textures and be very abstract with your strokes, it turned out to be a lot of fun to paint.  It can get tricky though if you put a hard edge in any of the areas in there it'll be too obvious, you have to be aware of the form and how the values correspond to each other.  Then I moved onto the lighter values and the jelly hmmmmm yummy! You can see I'm just applying the local color and getting the feel of the overall form, not concentrating on details.  I'm applying thin paints in this area so I can build on top of it and also have it be controlled.

Then I added the smaller forms I used titanium white, yellow ochre pale, cadmium yellow light, cadmium deep red, cadmium red, cadmium orange, and burnt sienna.  You can see the smaller forms work better when the bigger form is established and the light is correct.  Then I started on the second pastry approaching it the same way as I did with the first, adding the local colors and worrying about modeling the bigger forms.

Instead of adding the smaller forms to the darker values and taking it to a finish, I decided to change it up and do the same with the lights and have an overall bigger form established.  I really liked doing this approach I was able to judge the lightest lights to the darks while establishing the smaller forms.

Then I added the smaller forms to the lighter values.  Then I approached the plate the same way just paint the fall of light and not worry about details.  Paint the simple information which is whats the local colors, where's the light hitting it, and make the form turn.  Once thats established you can add the smaller forms and mold it to fit with the bigger forms, remember if the bigger form is not right then the smaller ones will never be right.  You must always make the smaller forms work with the bigger forms in respect to chroma, fall of light, and hue.

Then I added the smaller forms to the plate I used titanium white, cobalt blue, and ivory black.  Then I also added the background which was ivory black, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and cadmium orange.  The last pic is the final result, it was nice painting these delicious treats I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did!  Thanks for stopping buy and viewing.  Bon appetite!