Year: 2017

Day 8. Plate of Cookies

I was thinking about cookies after all that Rugelach talk yesterday.

This Plate of Cookies is from our favorite bakery right, The Riviera Bakehouse, right here in Ardsley, NY. It’s our go-to bakery for paintable and edible baked goods, and has been for over 30 years.

Liv Hansen, the owner of Riviera, who is an artist herself, brought over a box of cookies. She puts her talent to work in the bakery designing the most gorgeous cakes. Two years ago during my first Challenge, Liz came over to see some of my work and talk art, and gave me productive feedback that helped me save my Box of Donuts painting.

That afternoon, Liv and I arranged some of the cookies on my purple plate and took photos before they were devoured. It took me a while to get up the courage to paint this one. Now I have a lovely painting to commemorate that day.

This photo was taken that day too. Liv is holding the cake topper that she made for my surprise birthday party (I won’t tell you how long ago; we have a second fridge in the garage…). There are several levels in it: Liv created the chocolate cake topper she is holding, which is based on a painting I did, whose subject was a black-out cake from Riviera that Liv made!

So we have a photo of a cake made from a photo of my painting, which was made from photo of a cake. Got that?

I am surprised I was able to finish this painting given its complexity and time constraint. It actually took a day and a half of painting time, plus sketch time a few days before. This was one of those paintings that you knew was going to work after a few hours.

The trick to this painting was planning, and thinking through the approach to the layers of color. I started with the light sugar cookies and rainbow cookie, which was key since it’s much easier to paint dark over light when oil paint is wet. Then the purple plate came next, followed by the highlights and finishing touches.

While I love this painting, I need to be more careful in my selection of complex subjects. There needs to be a mix of simple and complicated, or I’ll never make it through the Challenge. I was way ahead of schedule but not so much now, which could become problematic towards the last half of January when I have some commitments.

This means that shorter blogs will be better. Pithiness is a skill I would like to hone anyway.

Now I’m going to spend some time strategizing for the next few days. Thank you for stopping by!

Day 7. Rugelach

I didn’t realize it until just now, but after painting Cinnamon Bun swirls for Day 6, I followed with another spiral dessert in Rugelach.

“Rugelach” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradles panel, 6 x 6 inches

 

Clearly my subconscious is working overtime. I couldn’t resist looking up more meanings of spirals going back to Celtic times: balance, progress, centering, expansion, connection, journeying (the path from outer consciousness to the inner soul). Most of this made sense in the context of the Challenge.

Today’s painting is based on a photo I recently took at the Zaro’s Bakery stall in Grand Central Market. The Market in Grand Central Station is one of my favorite places to go and get inspired to paint food, and eat lunch after taking a train into Manhattan.

You should have seen me take this, standing on tiptoes holding my camera lens high above the glass, as the cashier was giving me the evil eye… However, I managed to take photos without hanging over the glass and contaminating the baked goods.

The first order of business was to zoom in on the rugelach and eliminate extraneous clutter in this sketch on wood panel. The primed surface is unforgiving, and doesn’t really allow for rough sketching. I tried to sketch lightly so the pencil lines wouldn’t be obtrusive in the final painting.

I don’t know if you can see it, but the table line on the left and right doesn’t line up in this sketch. Luckily I noticed it after checking the photo, and made the correction early on. Sometimes the camera lets you see details that you miss with the naked eye.

I started with a cool, light blue background to complement the cake stand, which I had been wanting to paint for ages, and to balance the color palette so it wasn’t too warm. Then I moved on to the combination of chocolate and strawberry rugelach.

When I first showed the painting to Bonnie after a few hours work, she said it reminded her of Wayne Thiebaud. That’s not a bad thing so I decided to stop. The next morning, I studied it in the morning daylight, added a bit of detail (the darker strawberries), and called it a day. After all, it is a painting a day.

As I was writing this blog post, I wasn’t quite sure how to spell rugelach. When I looked it up on Wikipedia, I found numerous spellings: rugelakh, rugulach, rugalach, ruggalach, rogelach (all plural), rugalah, rugulah, rugala. Since it’s a traditional Jewish pastry that rolls dough around various fruit fillings, the common spellings are a hodgepodge of English and a phonetic version of Hebrew. My initial spelling, rugelah, wasn’t even on the lis!. Zaros used two “g’s”.

Now what spelling should I use for hashtags?

Tomorrow I need to get up earlier and take advantage of the natural daylight. It’s always better to paint during the day. After the midnight kitchen leak incident, I managed to shift my days and nights again.

With that, off to my easel.

Day 6. Cinnamon Rolls

Frankly I’m surprised by how much I like this little painting.

“Cinnamon Bun” by Beverly Shipko. Oil painting on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

There’s something about the combination of the swirls and the stripes of icing interrupting the circular pattern that I find appealing, as well as the cropping buns around a central image. Do you have any thoughts on why Cinnamon Buns just works?

Perhaps I’m attracted to the ancient symbolism of the spiral, would can mean growth and evolution. It can also symbolize female energy, the womb and abundance.

I started with this photo, which in hindsight looks rather unremarkable. At this point, my expectations were very low (more like nonexistent) for a cinnamon buns painting.

Then I cropped it dramatically on my computer, and thought it had possibilities as either a square or rectangular painting. In the end, I went with the horizontal format, cropping the image further.

The photo was so unmemorable that I had absolutely no idea where I took it. Fortunately,  we’re in the digital age and I could go back and look at everything I took that day.

It turns out the photo is from the buffet at The Samoset Resort where Jay and I stayed in Rockport, Maine last June. It was a lovely day outside with clear blue skies. We had a huge breakfast before walking out to the Rockland Breakwater Light, which is about .7 miles. We carefully navigating our way around these big crevises.

I could barely see the lighthouse as we approached.

Fortunately someone had the foresight to add a pontoon extension out into the water for picture taking.

I thought about painting the lighthouse, but found another one that is more dramatic. It may make an appearance in a week or so as I make my way to non-food paintings.

However, I’m not ready to leave desserts or food just yet. Maybe I’m simply seeking out comfort foods in this cold weather. Right now I’m thinking about a cup of warm tea or coffee with this cinnamon bun. Another time.

See you tomorrow!

Day 5. “Hostess” Cupcake

A classic “Hostess” Cupcake. So why the quotes?

“Hostess Cupcake” by Beverly Shipko, Oil painting on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 inches

This is actually a Crumbs Bake Shop Cupcake from Stamford, CT masquerading as a Hostess Cupcake. It’s part of a 12 cupcake mini-pack with all different varieties. You can see how it’s sitting in the plastic container. Crumbs cupcakes have fewer, larger white frosting loops on top than Hostess, which has more and smaller loops/.

I like the bold graphic quality of this painting. It kind of hits you between the eyes, and still reads like a Hostess Cupcake – regardless of where it came from. That’s the hallmark of a great American brand.

Hope your day starts off better than mine did. I just found a big leak under the kitchen sink, and couldn’t clean my brushes. The water all over the kitchen floor gave it away. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the plumber gets here before I have to leave for the eye doctor. Then I better work on something simple today for Day 6 since time will be limited.

Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon!

Day 4. Two Dunkin’ Donuts

Here’s another American icon courtesy of Dunkin’ Donuts. Two Dunkin’ Donuts In A Box was just plain fun to paint!

“Two Dunkin’ Donuts in a Box” by Beverly Shipko. Oil painting on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

The best part was painting the sprinkles in all those different colors. Is there such a thing too many sprinkles? Maybe I went a little overboard on the chocolate donut (or doughnut?).

Having said that, it was not fun to clean all the brushes. Each sprinkle color required at least one brush, often two for the shadows, to keep the colors from getting muddy. I used every small brush I own, and a few larger brushes, maybe 20 in all. Since I paint in oil which is not water soluble, it took a half hour just to clean the brushes.

Similar to yesterday’s Stack of Oreos, Dunkin’ Donuts has that aura of nostalgia and Americana. I thought about stacking multiple donuts like the Oreos, but opted for a quieter composition with one donut leaning against the other.

For you Dunkin’ Donuts aficionados out there, notice how the sprinkles cover the entire donut. A few years ago Jim, the local Dunkin’ Donuts franchise owner gave me a box of donuts to paint, and these were the last two. Today it’s the donut tips that tend to be dipped in sprinkles. Apparently there is such a thing as too many sprinkles from a cost perspective.

In a way, Two Dunkin’ Donuts may turn out to be another heritage painting like this 20 x 24 inch oil painting I did a while back. (Guess I like boxes more than I realized.) Franchise owners get excited about the transparent logo paper, which is long gone.

It’s time to plan for Days 5 and 6 by sketching a few paintings in advance. I have to get out in front of things since I have a eye doctor appointment Thursday and will lose a chunk of the day.

If you have any ideas about other American icons to paint, I would love to hear from you! Thanks. See you again soon.

Day 3. Stack of Oreos

My Challenge just wouldn’t be complete without Oreos, a subject that I can’t seem to resist.

“Stack of Oreos” by Beverly Shipko, Oil Painting, 5 x 7 inches cradled wood panel

Why do I keep coming back to them? When I think of Oreos, I think about many things, most of all being a kid again. They are iconic images with a  touch of nostalgia. A rite of passage. A piece of Americana, like apple pie and and Chevrolet.

I had sketched Stack of Oreos a long time ago after my favorite redhead “biters” came to visit for our annual Oreo Cookie summer party, which I wrote about during another challenge.  Jay and I make a great tag team at these get togethers. He starts by doing magic tricks. Then we take a studio tour, and I break out the Oreos for the boys. In 2014 Marsh and Graham came with Grandma Faye, my longtime friend who they were visiting during summer vacation.

Graham and Marsh both went all out biting and stacking. Just looking at this makes me smile!

As for the painting, here’s the original inspiration. I’m not sure whose handiwork this is since we forgot to write their name on the plate. Maybe the boys will remember.

I had to work hard and thoughtfully. There are lots of little details on the sides. At one point I thought I was done, and then stepped back and surveyed my progress. Surprise! The Oreos looked like they were bending.

So I straightened them out a bit, but decided to leave the top two a little curved since it added character and personified the Oreos. How’s that for overthinking?

As I write this, I realize that I’m already looking forward to next summer to see what my favorite biters come up with.

On to Day 4. Hope you stop by tomorrow.

Day 2. Macarons

Here’s another sweet treat, Macarons, that is more healthy than most. It has a delicate palette (and flavors!) that makes it an interesting composition. In that sense, it’s a slight departure from the more vibrant subjects I often paint.

 

“Macarons from DelRey Shop, Antwerp” by Beverly Shipko, Oil painting, 16 x 20 inches on cradled wood panel

And now it’s true confession time. This is a larger 16 x 20″ version of a small 5 x 7″ Challenge painting that I did in 2015. You can see the differences in scale below. It certainly took a lot longer than a few days to paint (try weeks!) because of the size, details, and the individually mixed macaron colors.

I recently finished Macarons and thought this was the perfect time for its debut – especially since it certainly was a challenge!

Macarons required a lot of patience. The more I looked, the more I saw. Every time I put more detail in on one macaron, I had to add more to the surrounding macarons. At times, it felt like this was the painting that was never going to end. Finally I reached a point when I knew it was time to stop (confirmed by Bonnie when she exclaimed “Done!” after work), although the temptation to keep going was strong.

Thank you to Betty Heller for thinking of me and taking the original photo at DelRey shop in Antwerp.

My intention was to keep Macarons in reserve for a day when I wouldn’t be able to paint, which happened yesterday when we spent a chunk of the day with Noelle, a good friend from my Kraft General Foods days, and her family in New Jersey. It’s one our our holiday traditions. I wish I had celebrated this painting in style by bringing macarons for dessert, but I didn’t think about it until just now.

See you tomorrow for Day 3. Time to paint!

Day 1. Apples and Honey

“Apples and Honey” by Beverly Shipko, Oil painting on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

I thought I would kick off the New Year with one of my favorite snacks, Apples and Honey. This tasty treat happens to be healthy and fits with one of my New Year’s resolutions to take care of myself.

This painting came easily, at least partly because I had been staring at the drawing and internalizing it so long that I had a clear vision in my head.

I started painting last week so I could take my time – but not too much time since it runs the risk of being overworked. One of the reasons I do the Challenge is to practice capturing the essence of a subject and stopping while the work still looks fresh.

It also helped that I bought a tube of turquoise oil paint, a vibrant color that I found almost impossible to mix with any consistency. And  Bonnie’s friend, Christina, gave her this jar of honey with the wand as a bridal shower favor, which I kept close by. The wand with the dripping honey is my favorite part of the painting.

I hope you and your family all have a sweet New Year! I wish you much health, happiness and peace.

New Year’s Painting Challenge, 2017

A few weeks ago, I decided to participate in the January 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (aka 30/30 Challenge), sponsored by Leslie Saeta.

My first Challenge was exactly 2 years ago. Some of my friends say I’m a glutton for punishment to do it again. I think I just love to paint, and am looking forward to creating art without distraction and the opportunity to explore new subjects.

I started preparing in December 1st by going through my photo archive (100,000 photos and growing rapidly) looking for a theme. So technically it takes at least 2 days per painting when you include all the prep time.

Of course, I thought about sticking exclusively with some aspect of food. I also considered travel, nature, sea shells, every day objects, and using old postcards (I have my mother’s collection that includes a dirigible!) or famous artists as inspiration.

This process took way more time than expected. I have more unfinished blogs in my head than ever before!

In the end, I didn’t settle on a single theme, as you can see from this table of prints in our family room. I am simply choosing subjects that spark joy. Sound familiar?

It’s a good thing I started early since most of my compositions are horizontal, and I’m short on 5 x 7 rectangular panels (vs. 6 x 6 square). Since my go-to art store, A.I. Friedman in Port Chester, is out of stock on this item, I just ordered 20 Ampersand Primed Smooth cradled wood panels from www.jerrysartarama, and velcro to keep the panels from moving (or falling off!) my large easels.

I also bought a few tubes of acrylic and oil paints.

Today my framer, Joe at Artistic services, cut some thicker, flatter wood strips to raise the panels higher off the easel. Thank you Joe for the quick turnaround! Now I can easily reach the bottom of the panels (to sign, and to photograph without pesky shadows from the “lip” of the easel.)

A brand new memory card just found its way into my camera, along with a fully charged battery.

Of course, no challenge would be complete without some technical glitches. This time it was my main email address, which is working again after spending a few hours deleting several thousand emails, with more to go tomorrow morning. Webmaster Laura is working feverishly on a mobile friendly version of this blog and website that downloads faster.

Tonight I’ll start organizing my studio between painting and watching the Fiesta Bowl (aka Playstation Fiesta Bowl but that’s not rolling off my tongue…). Ohio State is playing Clemson and I’m conflicted about who to root for since the Big Ten Buckeyes are arch rivals of my beloved Michigan Wolverines… So whatever you’re doing tonight, I wish you a….

P.S. Thank you Bonnie and Laura for creating my Bitmoji! Do you think it looks like me?