#crumbsbakeshop | Beverly Shipko, Artist

Day 6 of 30 – Praline Cupcake

September 6, 2015 by Beverly

Jackson Pollock. That’s who I think about when I look at Crumbs Bake Shop Praline Cupcake.

I imagine someone going wild with the icing bag just like Pollock did with brushes and cans of house paint. The biggest difference is in the anger – there isn’t any this cupcake, whose purpose is to make us happy and come back for more.

Day 6. “Crumbs Praline Cupcake” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 inches

The bottom line is that this cupcake design becomes an abstract composition. Similar to Poloack, Day 6 was about the handling of paint, but without the intensity. This work is all about the texture of the nuts and the building up of oil paint to literally simulate the nut crumbs 3-dimentionally on the surface of the panel. It’s all about the crumbs.

As opposed to the vibrant Day 5 Crumbs M&M Mini Cupcake, this delicacy has a limited palette. On Day 6, I decided to skip the plastic container that it came in (though I must admit I miss it a bit, and may try this again sometime with it) and added a little green to the background (a risky move for me since I’m not a green fan).

What is a praline cupcake, you might ask? According to Wikipedia, the broad definition is that it’s a confection including nuts and sugar, with cream being a common third ingredient. In France, bakers use almonds, while in the US we tend to use a combination of pecans, hazelnuts and almonds with milk or cream to achieve something akin to fudge. Whatever the recipe is, I remember it was delicious!

You won’t see this cupcake on the Crumbs website since it was a special cupcake that they made before filing bankruptcy. In the good old days, there was a wider variety of cupcakes on any given day and more rotating flavors. I wish I had taken more photos back then since Crumbs cupcakes look better than most, at least from an artist’s perspective. While competitors like Sprinkles offer great tasting cupcakes, how many can you paint with their signature circles on top?

This was a good break from yesterday, a relatively relaxing day (not as relaxing as going to the beach though).

Now it’s time to plan tomorrow’s treat. I feel a sugar craving coming on…

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.