Drawing a Day 20150212

Cupcake

Watercolor on paper

Wasn't going to post this because I was really just playing, but isn't that part of the fun? 

I need to get my gouache out. I wish they sold gouache in pans. 

In the Press: My Work on Cakespy's Blog

So, I have long been a huge fan of Cakespy, as an artist, a blogger, a food experimenter, a person...So what could be better than when someone I admire so much gives a shout-out to me? The most fabulous Cakespy posted about my cupcake cards yesterday.

Thanks Cakespy!

(You can purchase these cards at my Etsy shop along with new holiday cards...)

In the Press: My Work At Cupcake Project Blog

Stef over at Cupcake Project wrote a lovely mention in her ab fab cupcake blog! I am so glad she enjoyed the cards I sent to one of my favorite cupcake making divas!

Last spring, Tina and I teamed up with Cupcake Project through our blog, Scoopalicious, to do an Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup! It has been great getting to know Stef through the blogging world. Her cupcake recipes are amazing, and I was first drawn in by her Shirley Temple Cupcakes.

Please visit my Etsy site to purchase these birthday cards!

I actually have done a bunch of cupcake watercolors I will have to post soon. 

A Drawing A Day, 10.17.08

Here's another drawing a day -- of course the last one was in the beginning of September! 5x5 inches, watercolor on Claybord. I don't know how long it took me.

A Drawing A Day, 6.26.08

After way too long, I am back with A Drawing A Day (What is this? A Drawing a Quarter?!). And guess what? I am loving it. If I have an unproductive day or I can't get motivated, I just feel like at least I have done something. Yes, that is exactly how I have been feeling. And I feel good about this watercolor. I am going to keep doing cupcakes because I love the and they are popular with the audiences right now, and it's really neat to see how my drawings change over time.

I have realized how much I love working with a practically dry brush on this clayboard.

This one is quite small, only 4"x4". I love the intimacy of such a small painting -- both while making it and in the end, looking at it.

A couple notes to self:

1. Do this more often. It makes you feel good.
2. You also like using black Bravo markers -- a lot.
3. Good thing I am making this "note to self" list. I can't even remember the last of the three in a span of minutes. Oh well.
   

A Drawing A Day, 3.4.2008

Another watercolor on clayboard...still having trouble with accurate scans, especially when I scrape into the clayboard. Any ideas of how to fix this?

I don't have anything exciting to say. Well, yeah, I do. Today was my first time actually working in my new studio space. I mean, Kev and I have been in there a lot and building equipment, and the other weekend, Mom, Dad, Kevin, Jesse, Ashley, and Jonah helped with the move (thank you so much, all!) , but today was the first day of actually going there during the day alone to work.

A Drawing A Day, 2.20.2008

I knew this would happen. I would do a drawing I love one day, and then one I hate the next. Oh well, I promised I would post them, no matter what. What was nice with this, as with all my A Drawing A Days, as I said in my first post about them, I set the timer for an hour, and if I at least play with the drawing for 30 minutes to one hour, I can feel good about at least trying. By forcing myself to play with this drawing at least that long with the option of stopping after that, I actually worked into the drawing a little more than I had planned, and did redeem it a bit.

Tomorrow I am going to the art store to buy more clayboard, because I love it, and I wanted to figure out if I like the smooth board for watercolor as much as I like the textured board.

Do I like it as much? Answer: NO. On the smooth board, the watercolor just sits there, and as it dries leaves a ring that is just too distracting. [Now that I think of it, I have been noticing this on my smooth paper too -- I wonder if this will be less evident in my rough paper.] It also takes forever and a day to dry and my impatience just caused me to make a mess.

This frustrating drawing did give me a chance to play around with the scratch board qualities of the material, and in the end, it was this quality which helped redeem the drawing a little -- but I am still not in love with it.

A Drawing A Day, 2.19.2008

Here is my latest cupcake. I know, I am a little obsessed with painting cupcakes, but I am enjoying the challenges of a similar subject matter with different attempts and mediums. For this 5"x5" cupcake, I painted it on textured clayboard with watercolors. I am loving this clayboard (I guess it has been renamed to aquabord.) Anyway, it is a really cool product that I am really enjoying. I will need to pick some more up next time I am at the Art Store.

I do think this looks a little flat, next time I need to work on giving the cake a little more depth. Interestingly enough, while there isn't depth in the cake itself, there is apparently depth in the strokes, because Kevin literally thought I had done this painting with a fuller bodied paint than watercolor.

Page A Day (Humble Beginnings)

I am finally posting the Page A Day images in the color calendar (see below -- or link here -- for the last entry about this calendar). For a complete listing over time, continue to check here, but I will also post them by the handful on this blog.

I want to start off by saying sometimes these are five minute exercises, just forcing me to do something creative for the day. However, once I do them in the book, they are committed to the book, and therefore I will post them to this page, no matter how bad or how boring they may be.

I hope not to skip any days with this project (aside from the fact that the book arrived on January 7, and I therefore skipped the first 6 days of the year) but I do understand that sometimes its just not possible, so maybe there won't be something for the day. But I will post that blank page if I don't do anything on it. Most of all, I hope you enjoy my creative journey...

Hey there, Cupcake!

I played around with watercolor today. Its been a long time. I am still getting used to it again. I did cupcakes again. Here are two of my favorites. Again, still playing. These are pretty small, images are only about 2x2 inches.

Kevin got me this super cool book for Christmas -- Moritz Zwimpfer Colour Calendar 2008. It came today. Each page is a different color and even though it is really a calendar, i thought it would be a super cool page a day drawing project. It is SO super cool. Only problem is, I thought the pages would be uncoated, so drawing on them is a bit hard. Oh well, it leaves lots of room for experimentation, which is what I started to do today with acrylic, watercolor and pencil. Thanks, Kevin! I think I will post that tomorrow (each page is clearly dated, so you'll be able to tell when it is from) or maybe later tonight. We'll see.

A Drawing A Day 12.17.07

I'm not going to lie. Some days are worse than others. Some days I really don't feel like drawing and you can tell. ON these days I don't think I want to write too much, either.

Cupcake from Hannaford's. 45 minutes. Didn't even finish the icing. This cupcake isn't that attractive. Frosting is very crisco-y. Even still, I was tempted to eat it. I didn't. When I went in the kitchen, the Christmas cookies Arianna and I made were more appealing.

Cupcake. 15 minutes. Didn't even waste a half an hour on this one. Tried another experiment of using one of dad's old psych textbook pages. Chose this one because it talks about human error and since the first drawing of the day was full of human error, I thought it would be appropriate. (Side note: I have enjoyed using these books in my art. See this entry for another example.) Same cupcake from Hannaford's. Hate to waste food, but this one is going in the trash. Just like the drawing should.

I said before though, I am not only posting good drawings in these posts, so I guess today proved it with some really not-so-good ones.

I also have to figure out this scanning thing. It seems off. On one hand, things are looking better than they actually do, sort of, and on another, they really aren't accurate.

A Drawing A Day 12.14.07

Hey there cupcake! As I said in the last post, I really wanted to draw cupcakes. I wanted to eat them so therefore, according to my new plan, I wanted to draw them. Last night Kevin and I walked to downtown Waltham in the snow, had a lovely dinner, and stoped to buy carrots and cupcakes on the way back. The cupcakes were pretty sad looking, and not worth carrying the one mile trip back up the hill in the snow. So, long story short, this morning I made them. I made my models. From scratch. Not sure why I made them from scratch, but I did. Took longer than I hoped. And of course I tested. The batter. The frosting. The cooked cakes. I didn't eat either of the two I am drawing though. And the remaining 18 (it only made 21) are boxed up for the birthday of lovely Rachel tonight.

When they were done and frosted, I drew. I clearly had a better time with the wrapper than the cupcake, which brings me to wonder, was it worth all the effort of baking?

So the first one is my classic 6x6 inch drawing. There was a shadow, but it took away too much from the cupcake. I erased it, but it was there pretty well, so it's still there. Though I am liking how the folds of the wrapper turned out, I do feel like the right is a little awkwardly shaded, and in the next drawing I do, I will aim to even that out. Additionally, I need to work on the frosting. Clearly its underdone, but I just got frustrated with it, and since my 30 minute timer had gone off, I allowed myself not to be consumed by the drawing/frustration. One thing I should have not done is put sprinkles on top. I mean, its been a while since I have been really drawing. I think that frosting itself with out all these glassy confettis all over it is enough of a challenge.

For the second one, sized at 5x5 inches, I did something different, in which I like the concept, but it didn't turn out exactly as I planned. I drew the cupcake on a pink and green paper to represent frosting and wrapper. I kind of like it, but next time I think i am going to have it approximate the line of the cupcake-wrapper break a little more accurately, or at least try at all! This cupcake had no sprinkles (well it did, but I brushed them off and refrosted, which in turn left for rougher frosting, as it was beginning to dry.) Again, I like the wrapper more than the frosting -- while the frosting in the above drawing was underdone, this frosting seems to be overdone.