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!
