"Solitaires Pastry"

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"Solitaires Pastry"

7 x 5 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Pastries are always a delight to paint, one reason is that I get to divulge into them when the paintings complete.  This pastry stood out to me for a couple reasons, first I really like the gestural cream folds and I also the subtle values.  It was a challenge to capture these subtle values especially between the folds in the cream.  The overall movement of the pastry was what captured me the most, hopefully I was able to portray that in this painting.

I started with a dry brush approach for the drawing stage, I like to keep the lines extremely light incase I need to correct any portion of the drawing.  When the drawing is complete I stated the background first using cerulean blue, naples yellow and titanium white.

Then I started on the chocolate chip stating the middle to darker values, I used ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and ivory black.  I started really thin and built up to the dark opaque layer I'm going for.  I don't wanna start to thick in the beginning this will make the paints uncontrollable and not give me the subtle value shifts i'm going for.

Then I add the highlights with just titanium white and cerulean blue.  I then start on the cream part of the pastry, I start to add the local colors first or the shift of one value to the other.  I wanted to get a general feel of value shifts first with a bit of chroma.  As stated before I start really thin and build up to my level of thickness.  It's a dry brush approach in the beginning layers and build up to the thickness of paints.  

When the values and chroma's are working I then add the darkest values, for the cream I use cad. yellow, titanium white, raw umber, burnt sienna, and ivory black.  I also start to add the details of the dusting on the cream.

Then I start to add the chocolate base to the pastry, I start with the darkest values and move onto the lighter values.  I use ivory black, burnt sienna, cerulean, and titanium white.

Then I added the wooden base I just used yellow ochre, cerulean blue, naples yellow, raw umber and titanium white.  Then I went back to the cream and added more details and also went really thick with the highlights.  This is the part of the painting I love doing, where you can create texture so thick it looks as if it's coming out of the canvas.  I find a lot of joy in creating these textures.  Overall I like the subtle values I was able to achieve, its deceptively simple to do.  It was a great challenge to push myself to keep the values so soft and subtle.  I challenge you guys to do the same, paint an object that has subtle values and try to capture the light and texture.  Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed!