"Petite Pastry"

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"Petite Pastry"

7 x 5 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Hi everyone today has been raining and getting colder as well, basically a perfect day to stay in and paint.  Its been fun doing larger paintings and switching to these smaller alla prima paintings.  I saw this petite pastry at the grocery store and it reminded me of the pastry I painted a while ago but much smaller, hence the name "petite".  Ofcourse I bought it and the good news was they gave me two for one!  These pastries have been so much fun to paint, learning how to render different textures and bring out the intense colors that are hidden within.  A good treat to a rainy day.  

I started with the usual dry brush approach using no mediums with a bit of raw umber.  After the drawing was establish I added the background first using cerulean blue, naples yellow, and titanium white.  Then I added lighter values of the base using yellow ochre, naples yellow, and titanium white.  I also added a bit of the background color to mesh the two together.  

Then I added the darker values to the base using burnt sienna, and ivory black.  When the base was done I moved towards the blue berries, I used ivory black for the darker values. 

Then I moved towards the lights using cerulean blue, ivory black, and titanium white.  I kept meshing the darker and lighter values together dabbing the correct values where they need to be placed at.  I then started on the raspberry doing a large form modeling technique, I used cad. red light, burnt umber and ivory black.  

For the lighter values I used titanium white and a bit of cerulean blue.  When painting the raspberry I wasn't thinking of painting every single circle, I wanted to paint the impression of the circles.  At times its best to give the impression of the texture rather than painting every hair on a dog, doing so can kill the painting and the look you'r going for.

After the raspberry was done I moved to the base of the pastry starting with the middle and darker values.  I used burnt sienna, raw umber, and ivory black.  As you can see I dab the values where they need to be starting with a light pressure and going harder if I need a darker value, remember its all about control.

Then I added the lighter values using naples yellow, yellow ochre and titanium white.  I also started to add the glaze of the base meshing them with the blue berries and raspberry.  Then I added the dark cast shadows of the pastry on the base, I used ivory black, cerulean blue, and titanium white.  Overall I like the finish of the painting, it was a little quickie to do on a rainy day.  Painting different textures always bring a level of difficulty to a painting, but its all worth it in the end.  Thanks for stopping by and viewing my painting, hope you enjoyed!