Day 1 of the 30/30 Challenge – Milkshake Cupcake

For those of you know my work, it’s not surprising that I chose a dessert today for my first daily painting.

I wanted to directly compare the process of painting a sketch vs. a highly finished work, and to use this experience as a benchmark for the future. Today I decided to work from a photo that I took of this delectable “yin-yang” cupcake from Crumbs Bake Shop, which I kept in a photo book (my version of a sketchbook.) To my surprise, I just checked and found out that it is over 4 years old, which is a long time to be thinking about a potential subject.

There were a lot of firsts today: This is the first oil painting I have ever done in a day, the first one on a wood panel, my smallest dessert at 6 x 6 inches, and the first time I used a tinted undercoating (a faint hint of pink is showing through the vanilla frosting and blue shadow).

All in all, it was a successful day and I had a good time.

The paint literally glided on the totally smooth surface of the wood panel, which made paint application easy and pleasant. It was still a bit of an adjustment, and in some ways the surface felt less forgiving than canvas or linen (which is flexible) since the paint sits right on the rigid surface. Perhaps I’ll feel differently after I have a few more paintings under my belt. I spent more time contemplating each step along the way since my personal goal was to complete this by the end of the day, and I knew there was no time to let the panel dry and repaint mistakes later.

My impulse was to keep working tonight and add more details (e.g. shadows on each crumb) until the cupcake was “perfect”. While I knew in my gut that this sketch was finished, old habits die hard and I wanted to keep going anyway, even knowing the brushwork would lose its freshness by doing that.

Thanks again, Laura, for gently but firmly reminding me that this cupcake was intended to be a daily painting, and that the true challenge for me is to accept this fact and adjust my style accordingly. Knowing when to stop is mostly an art and not a science (which applies to blogging too…).

If you are interested in purchasing this painting, please contact the artist at info@beverlyshipko.com.

See you tomorrow!