#30paintingsin30days | Beverly Shipko, Artist

Day 5 of 30 – M&M Cupcake

September 5, 2015 by Beverly

“Crumbs M&M Mini Cupcake”, by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 inches

I am particularly proud of this painting since I didn’t start applying paint until after 5pm, which is late for a composition this ambitious. I plunged ahead anyway.

The key was working with a detailed sketch, having relentless focus, and carefully applying the paint (there was no time to repaint anything!). It also helped to have lots of brushes on hand (to keep the colors from getting muddy, about 3 per color so I didn’t have to wash them every time I introduced a new color) and Q-tips ready to remove excess paint (usually artists use cloth or a palette knife to do this, but this panel is too small for that).

As you can see, I started by laying in the darks on a neutral beige acrylic underpainting to establish the structure of the picture, and to make sure the colors I mixed worked against the background (no time for remixing!). The beige was enough tone to allow the white frosting to pop and didn’t detract from the vibrant M&Ms.

This particular mini-cupcake is part of a 12-pack sold by Crumbs Bake Shop, with a delicious selection of many of their classic flavors. You can see hints of the plastic Crumbs container in the background, which is always a challenge (no pun intended). Day 5 was an exercise in chiaroscuro, each M&M requiring modeling like a ball to get the 3-D feeling.

Previously I had painted the whole tray in Bonnie’s Crumbs Bakeshop Mini-Pack, currently available at Cavalier Gallery in Greenwich, CT. While this painting is one of my all time favorites, I always thought a cupcake topped with M&Ms would make a good painting by itself, and decided to try it on wood, a very different painting experience vs. linen.

“Bonnie’s Crumbs Bakeshop Mini-Pack”, by Beverly Shipko, Oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches.

At first, I was oscillating back and forth about whether to include the transparent plastic container. While the painting would have worked either way, I left it in because the shadows gave the work life.

Tomorrow I’ll probably paint something with a more limited palette so I can take a break from this brush cleaning. I find myself wishing I had an assistant to help with the grunt work during the Challenge. Any volunteers?

See you tomorrow.

Day 4 of the 30/30 Challenge – Cake from The Boss

September 4, 2015 by Beverly

Over a year ago January, Bonnie and I went to Ridgewood, NJ for a used book fair, and had to stop by Carlo’s Bake Shop after watching the Grand Opening on Cake Boss.

And there it was – this pristine, luscious Oreo Cookie cake just crying out to be painted. And so I did today.

“Cake Boss Oreo Cookie Painting” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled panel, 6 x 6 inches

This Cake Boss Oreo Cookie Cake looked much neater and artistic than similar cakes I had seen, which tended to be too crumbly looking to paint (not in a positive way).

One of the reasons it took so long to paint was that this cake needed a square format canvas (not a typical shape), which I didn’t have and rarely used until this year. I was trying to make a square subject work on a horizontal canvas, and it never did quite look right. The preliminary sketches were so unsatisfactory that I put this Oreo cake back on the shelf.

Now that I am using square 6 x 6 wood panels, I thought I would try again. I’m glad I did.

Here’s what the painting looked like when I first started. It was slow going, but I made steady progress all day. I had to be patient as I painted in the details, and was rewarded when the painting gradually came to life. I focused on the interplay of light and shadows, the contrast of black and white, and the addition subtle color tones to liven things up a bit. Not surprisingly, the most difficult part was the whipped cream.

Cake Boss Oreo Cookie Cake is deceptively complex. Like many paintings, the devil is in the details. Only during a Challenge, there comes a time when you have to stop. I already spent a day and a half painting this, and have to put my brushes down. When you’re a perfectionist as I am, some days this is incredibly difficult, and has resulted in overworked paintings. This won’t be one of them – a good thing.

While Bonnie and I never did meet any of the Valastro family in Ridgewood that day, Day 4 of the Challenge brought me back to to the time we did Buddy “Cake Boss” Valastro at the local Dobbs Ferry train station. We raced over after Bonnie read a Facebook post saying Buddy was filming a show featuring Lidia’s Bakeshop & Cafe for a new TLC series, where The Cake Boss came to the rescue of floundering bakeries and resuscited them.

I remember what Buddy said when I showed him postcards of my cake paintings. He was thrown for a minute since he thought I was a baker, not a painter, but then he looked me straight in the eye and said: “You and me, we’re both artists. We just do it differently.” What a complement! Maybe I should send an image of the Cake Boss Oreo Cookie Cake painting to him. (Note: After seeing Buddy’s puzzled look, I made new postcards that clearly say paintings under the images.)

Time to switch gears and start planning for tomorrow. Who knows what it will bring? As always, suggestions and photos are welcome.

Day 2 of the 30/30 Challenge – Oreo in 3 Pieces

September 2, 2015 by Beverly

Don’t you just love the icing on Oreo Cookies?

That’s what inspired me to paint this Oreo, creatively bitten by my friend Eva Suchow. The white icing is just begging to be licked off!

“Eva’s Oreo Cookie in 3 Pieces” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 inches.

Compositionally, the icing provides a strong contrast to the broken pieces of the cookie. I wonder how Eva bit the top part of the cookie and not the bottom. Certainly there was no other entry quite like it.

Here is Eva just a few moments before participating in my Oreo Cookie Contest, and earning her spot as a finalist. Eva is the lady on the far right in the black sweater, with her husband Steve on the far left, and their friends, Gerri and Stan, from Australia (winning my award for traveling the farthest to attend my Open Studio!).

Yesterday’s Oreo Cookie painting came so easily that I expected the same things to happen today – but somehow it didn’t. That’s why painting is an art and not a science.

Today I started with the same size 6 x 6 wood panel, sketched in the cookie, and used a similar light pink acrylic ground to dull the white primer.

Then I struggled for a few hours applying oil paint – except when I brought out my old bristle brushes for the background, which gave the paint more texture. Maybe I’m simply more tired today. In this photo, I’m working on one of the parts that I labored over – the grooves going around the entire edge of the cookie.

While I’m happy with today’s Oreo painting, I wonder what the day will be like tomorrow. Perhaps Marli’s Oreo Cookie in 4 Pieces from Day 1 came together rather effortlessly because of the graphic quality of the four pieces, all of which conveniently broke into equal sized triangles. It’s something to consider as I move forward and choose subjects for the rest of the Challenge.

Any thoughts? Maybe there’s something I’m missing here. Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us.

Thanks for your help and see you tomorrow!

Day 1 of the 30/30 Challenge – Oreo in 4 Pieces

September 1, 2015 by Beverly

I am addicted to Oreo Cookies. Painting them, that is, rather than devouring them like I did when I was younger.

And so I couldn’t resist returning again to one of my favorite subjects to kick off Day 1 of the 30 Paintings in 30 Day Challenge.

In fact, this isn’t any Oreo. This is one of the many entries I received in my annual Oreo Cookie Contest which I sponsor during the RiverArts Open Studio Tour in April. You are all invited to come over and simply take a bite to enter. I pick the best entries, paint them, and name the paintings after the biters. Marli’s Oreo Cookie in 4 Pieces is one of the 2015 finalists.

“Marli’s Oreo Cookie in 4 Pieces” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on wood cradled panel, 6 x 6 inches

This painting is essentially Marli’s portrait, albeit a non-traditional one, showing her unique bite.

Let me introduce you to Marli herself in the red shirt, who happens to be my next door neighbor. She and her friends Tess, Sydney and Dylan, all came to the Studio Tour (several times, I might add) and participated in the Oreo Cookie Contest (fellow chocoholics?). A good time was had by all, as you can see.

This particular Oreo is unusual since it broke into 4 parts, instead of the typical 2 or 3 pieces. I haven’t seen that for a number of years, and so this distinctive configuration stood out from the many other entries.

There are still a lot of potential paintings left on this table. But despite the best of intentions to plan, I still don’t know what tomorrow’s painting will be. Stay tuned.

If you get a craving for Oreos, be sure and stop by both here and my studio, where I always keep a spare pack of Oreos handy – and a camera nearby.