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$1 Art Vending Machine

After 2 days visiting hundreds of exhibits during Armory Art Fair Week, there’s one interactive installation that stands out above all others  – and that’s Art Vending Machine $1 Paintings. 

Booth 512 on Pier 94 at the Armory Show, Gallerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Stockholm

I love it! Apparently so does the Guggenheim who is thinking about purchasing this.

Located on the 94th Pier (Booth 512) at the grandaddy Armory Show (through Sunday, March 4), Art Vending Machine $1 Paintings attracted long lines whenever it was operating. The novelty of watching an original piece of artwork pop out of a huge vending machine for $1 was irresistible.

Simply put in your dollar, choose the concept you want from the list, tell the representative who talks to artist through a cardboard tube in the wall, wait a bit, and out it comes. Then you have your photo taken with your original art.

The buyers all walked away with big grins, proudly holding their abstract compositions, many commenting they were going to frame their creations.

This was one of the most innovative and memorable installations I have even seen at an art fair. It has special appeal to me as a painter of vending machines (Icons of the Candy World, Icons of the Chip World), my most recent being Super Foods.

“Super Foods”, Vending Machine Series, by Beverly Shipko, Oil on wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

With 10 paintings in the series so far, Art Vending Machine $1 Paintings opened up the world of possibilities to explore further. I plan to go beyond broccoli and think broader. As the metaphorical visual below implies, this theme can incorporate any material – even the kitchen sink.

So can I.

Reflections on the Challenge

I miss the Challenge.

There’s great satisfaction in starting a daily project and finishing it in a short period of time, with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. After 10 days, I’m still working away on this Blueberry Cheesecake painting, a unfamiliar time frame in the post-Challenge world.

Admittedly, I’m not painting 8 hours a day. I had set a goal to finish this today, and missed it. Unlike the Challenge, there are no immediate consequences.

So I’ve been thinking about why I like doing the Challenge, even if the pace is grueling for 30 days – and some people think I’m nuts. Here’s what I came up with:

  1. Structure. The Challenge imposed a clear external discipline on my daily routine. You know what you have to do, make a plan, execute the plan.
  2. Single Focus. I’m the kind of person who likes working one one thing at a time. With focus, I really internalize and see what I’m painting. Multi-tasking is overrated when it comes to my painting.
  3. Escape. For 30 days, I put the mundane chores of everyday life on hold (thanks to Jay and Bonnie). January was my stay-cation. I lived in a proverbial bubble – and didn’t want to come out.
  4. Momentum. The more I paint, the more I want to paint, and the better I get at it – and more confident.
  5. Experimentation. This is a low risk (defined as low time commitment) way to explore a variety of subjects, within the world of food and beyond. I pursued variations on some of my favorite themes (Stack of Oreos, Egg on Stove).
  6. Dialog. I enjoyed the exchange with other artists and explored new concepts (Super Foods aka Healthy Choices by so many people) while getting feedback from fresh eyes.
  7. Wet-on-wet. While I often talked (sometimes complained!) about paintings getting too wet, I love painting wet-on-wet (aka alla prima in Italian). I miss the flexibility and ability to wipe the slate clean with a paper towel. I’m getting frustrated with the fact the blue paint on my blueberries dries so quickly, decreasing my ability to make big structural changes.
  8. Memories. The Challenge gave me the excuse I needed to spend time going through my large photo collection (rationalizing all my picture taking…) and relive so many forgotten moments. I chose images that resonated with me, and in doing so took many trips down memory lane.

This Challenge felt easier than others. Why you may ask? Here’s what I learned:

  1. Planning was everything. In December, I printed out hundreds of photos that inspired so many ideas, and ordered all the materials I needed.
  2. Practice makes perfect. I knew what to expect from previous challenges and how to pace myself better (i.e. limited social media).
  3. I kept an open mind and found inspiration where I least expected it (in a Lobster tank!)
  4. You can’t always anticipate when a painting will be successful (Koi)
  5. Keeping my cool paid off and got me to the end with all 30 paintings (ok, ok, 2 drawings out of 30).

Bottom Line:

While I was off the grid for a month, and passed up an evening with Charles Osgood (someone I admire tremendously), I would do the Challenge again next January.

What a wonderful way to spend the heart of a cold NY winter!

Now that the official Challenge is over, my unofficial challenge begins: applying this newfound insight to the process of creating art on an ongoing basis.

Collage from 30/30 Challenge, 2017

At the end of the 30 Day Challenge, it’s traditional to make a collage of all your images. It’s an opportunity to look back and feel a sense of accomplishment for a job well done. It also brings a sense of closure.

This time around, I was determined to include all 30 paintings. Here’s what I came up with.

Assembling this collage took a lot more time than expected given I had done this before. There’s a learning curve to www.PicMonkey.com, as there is with any new software.

When I went back to previous collages (Collage of 30/30 Challenge Paintings, Collage from the 30/30 Challenge, My January Personal Challenge Collage), I realized that none of them had 30 works in them. Either I didn’t make it to 30, or I left out a few in the interest of the overall design, as I did below with this 17 painting experiment.

 

To include all 30 paintings, I used a simple 5 x 6 grid of 30 squares, a basic format that was provided free online.

Every painting has equal weight and a square format, irregardless of the original painting format.

As I got used to the software, I came up with a collage that somewhat preserved the horizontal and square formats. Some of the images are larger at the expense of others. I thought this might be more artsy (artsy PicMonkey formats required payment so I had to build my own). Maybe it’s more cluttered. But it’s time for bed.

So I ask you: What’s your favorite version of the collage? That will give me a starting point for the future.

Thank you all for coming by, and for all your encouraging support and feedback during the Challenge. It’s much appreciated and kept me going strong throughout January. Every once in a while I got discouraged, and your reassurance helped me regain momentum – which I’ll now use to explore new avenues in 2017.

Day 30. Super Foods

What’s your first thought when you look at this? What would you name this painting?

“Super Foods” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

Seriously, I would love to hear from you. So please jot down your initial thoughts about this image before you read the rest of this blog and you’re biased by my perspective.

Of course, I’m sensitized to vending images since I’ve painted quite a few, such as Icons of the Chip World and Icons of the Candy World. Then there’s my single candy bar vending series of five 20 x 10 inch paintings – so far.

And to think these paintings were inspired by my first vending machine painting during the September 2015 Challenge. If you read the original blog post about the process, you’ll see how difficult the first one was and how conflicted I felt about using so much black. I wrote about my lessons learned from that long, frustrating day. I’ve come a long way.

Did I ever mention that my husband Jay’s first marketing job was in the Food Service Division of Kraft General Foods, where he worked on… vending? Then he went to Pepsi and where he was in charge of several vending initiatives.

Back to the painting itself. Super Foods is a working title. At first I was just going to call this Broccoli, setting up different expectations. Then I tried include the word vending. Webmaster Laura came up with More Green Makes Cents. Very clever but not me.

I wanted to capture the conflicting emotions a person might feel when confronted by these vending choices in real life. How would you feel? Maybe:

  • Disgust at the thought of eating broccoli at all.
  • Guilt at choosing candy over healthy food.
  • Giddiness at the absurdity of it all.
  • Happiness at saving 25¢ by passing up sugary candy in favor of a healthy super food, which no kid would do in their right mind (unless they’re a vegetarian or never had candy in their life!).

Last year I came across a poorly stocked vending machine and took photos of the empty rows. I used one as my base. Then I bought a stalk of broccoli, took more photos, and made a little collage – which goes to show how low tech I am. Luckily I prepared everything in December since this was time consuming.

I began with a detailed drawing, eliminated the white labels, and decided on a broccoli price. (Is price an indicator of quality here?) Then I painted the background black.

The masonite board on my easel looked a little different this time. It included larger broccoli shots and my first vending painting as reference materials.

Good thing I saved this painting until the last day. I suspected it was a 2 day painting. Here’s where I stood at the end of yesterday (with an eye doctor’s appointment! No dilation after all).

Today I got a late start since I had a haircut in the morning (my lady is taking a 3 week vacation). Real life is now officially interfering with my painting life. The M&Ms wrapper took a long time with all the detail and variety of colors (translation: lots of brush cleaning to keep the colors clean). I earned my dinner break.

There were little kinks along the way, like the Twix metallic paint dried unexpectedly fast while I was eating, so I had to repaint areas. Getting the rings right was hard since they were so thin. A moment of unsteadiness would turn into 20 minutes of repairing a misstep.

While some of you may have been expecting me to end the Challenge with a gooey cake, this choice feels right to me. In a way, I came full circle. Yet I feel like Super Foods opened up potential new conceptual avenues to explore, which is one of my objectives for this Challenge.

Certainly Super Foods moves you away from the nostalgia of an Oreo Cookie. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Thoughts?

Tomorrow I’ll be putting together a collage of all 30 Challenge paintings. Hope you stop by to see it. It’s almost a piece of artwork in its own right.

Day 29. Gina’s Oreo


Practice makes perfect. So here’s another Oreo drawing, this one bitten by Gina.

Like Margie’s Oreo, Gina’s Oreo was bitten as an entry into my Oreo Cookie Contest held during my Open Studio. I’m considering doing a painting of this too. Maybe you’re even looking at the contest winner!

I first met Gina Thorne when she walked through the door in 2015. Gina was in charge of programming for the Scarsdale Artist’s Association, and asked me to do a Just Desserts Talk and Painting Demonstration. It sticks out in my mind because I enjoyed speaking in front of a group, especially about art and niche marketing, which you can about in The Sheer Joy of Just Desserts. At moments like these, my yearning to be an artist history professor re-emerges.

This particular Oreo was chosen because of the way it split into 3 pieces, yet it still looks like a classic bite. I’m almost finished with it, but I have to put it down tonight since I’m getting up at 6am tomorrow morning. – and it’s already past midnight. I’m going to the Awakenings Fair in Manhattan.

When I come home from the city, I’ll darken the craggy edges but lighten the dark “hotspot”, put in a little shadow on the white filling, and add more contrast to the rest (aka darken it with a softer drawing pencil).  Then I’ll be all set to start my Day 30 painting.

Or maybe I’ll wait a few days so I can start my next painting before my eye doctor’s appointment on Monday.

Unfortunately my eyes will be dilated part of the day, and I won’t be able to paint. If I hadn’t waited months for the appointment, I would have re-scheduled. So my planning finally went a bit awry. I’ll just add this to my lessons learned. No eye doctor’s appointment during a painting challenge!

I have a painting in mind for Day 30 that I simply have to do for myself, and you’ll probably find it intriguing at the very least.

Have I piqued your interest? If so, come back tomorrow.

Day 28. Blueberry Cheesecake

Another blueberry dessert for my Maine show, this time from Magnolia Bakery in NYC.

If this image looks vaguely familiar, it’s because I painted Magnolia’s Cranberry Cheesecake on Day 9. I picked the cranberry version first because of the vibrant color.

Since I was finishing yesterday’s Blueberry Pie in the morning, I didn’t start this until the afternoon. I kept both paintings on the same easel. At one point, I was working on both of them at the same time. The colors are similar, and I kept the same paper palette.

Blueberry Cheesecake is actually a composite view from several photos, which you can see better here.

There’s a light underpainting of yellow ochre to give this work some warmth. I started with the background in oil, which is white in the foreground with a tint of yellow, rose and light blue in it. The goal was just to keep this from looking too stark.

Then I moved on to the berries to work out the interplay of  blueberries and dripping juice. I spent a time studying the colors. Some blueberries looked like cranberries. When blueberries pooled on the table, they were dark indigo blue. But when they drip, the”sauce” is in the wine family.

Highlights are important in this painting, as they are to most paintings. Note that I left the highlighted areas white so I can see how they will look, and paint them in on a partially dry surface. Wet w hite highlights over indigo don’t work well, at least for me. The white almost seems to slither right off, barely leaving any paint.

I stopped painting at 1am. In the photos, these blueberries look too bright. Unfortunately I mixed white with the indigo. I was darkening them, but apparently not enough.

So I returned to the easel this morning hoping the blueberries didn’t look so day glow. Didn’t happen. I started this morning by darkening all the light blue areas (which are still photographing too light). Then I took the highlights down, which were too prominent. Since this took almost 3 hours,  I’ll have to plan my day carefully today!

Thanks for stopping by. Wish me good luck today!

Day 27. Blueberry Pie

With my upcoming summer show in Maine in mind, I bring you Blueberry Pie. Blueberries are the beloved Maine state fruit.

“Blueberry Pie” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on wood panel, 6 x 6 inches

We are blueberry pie fans and serve this often, especially during Open Studios. Bonnie selects goodies from Riviera Bakehouse that go with my paintings. I took lots of photos of this lattice pie a few years back after Liv, the owner of Riviera, pointed out that few bakeries do lattice work any more because of the labor costs.

I’ve painted blueberry pie before and blueberry cheesecake. So I got out indigo blue for the berries and alizaron crimson for that luscious cranberry-colored juice that is part of the blueberry pie experience.

As I write this blog, I’m still working on this painting after a full day’s work. That’s because there was a slight structural flaw that I didn’t catch until the end.

Things started off well.

The crust was looking good now that I found out the secret color for painting baked goods –  raw sienna. At this point, the flaw in the drawing still isn’t obvious. Can you see it yet?

I finally noticed it when I started working on the tin. Take a closer look at the height of the tin going all the way around. It’s not consistent. In fact, one side (bottom of painting) looks almost half as high as the other (top).

This problem gets more obvious as the tin gets darker. If you check out the reference photo, you see that some of the disparity comes from the angle of the shot. The rest comes from the evolution from pencil to paint, when the width of the brush can change the trajectory of the circles. And it did here.

Tonight I spent an hour and a half trying to gain some height on the bottom. I think I did. Unfortunately the tin got too dark and I lost some of that big lip on the tin near the bottom, but that was the only way to fix it. This is where I stopped for the night.

I estimated that it would take at least 2 hours to work on the tin, and it did. Since I used Q-tips to carefully wipe the paint from the tin, the remaining paint was just dry enough to work effectively this morning.

While I’m happy with this painting, I still have this weird compulsion to work on it to make it perfect. I’m glad this is a Challenge painting because I have to put it down – a good thing while it’s still fresh.

My Day 28 painting is all sketched out and ready to go. I just have to get to it! Stay tuned.

Day 26. Margie’s Oreo

Today was my day to relax and catch up by returning to my food roots with an Oreo drawing. I only had a few hours to work, which didn’t allow time for cleanup and brush cleaning.

“Margie’s Oreo Cookie” by Beverly Shipko, Drawing, 6 x 6 inches

This is my first drawing of this Challenge, and the first in a long time. I must admit to feeling a little rusty and missed having a paintbrush in my hand. I had to dig out my Bristol board pad and soft drawing pencils, although I confess that I still use Old Faithful – my soft yellow Ticonderoga pencil.

After I scanned this image the first time, I made the cookie and logo darker and made revisions so the cracks were more obvious, as they were at the beginning.

I have a long history with Oreos, both eating them as a child and painting them for over a decade.

On Day 2 of this Challenge, I painted Stack of Oreos. Three Oreo paintings from the 2016 Challenge include Oreo in 4 Pieces, Oreo in 3 Pieces, and BlakesBite, the 2016 Oreo Cookie Contest winner for its distinctive bite.

Days 1, 2 & 3 of the 30/30 Challenge, Paintings by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 inches

The Oreo Cookie Contest is held during my annual April Open Studio, which is fast approaching. Consider this an official invitation to come and participate in the fun by simply biting an Oreo or two (weekend of April 22nd/23rd). I select my favorite compositions to paint (or draw), and name the paintings after the biters. Each work essentially becomes a personal portrait, like Margie’s Oreo.

A few years ago, I started drawing single Oreos, whose monochromatic color are suited to pencils. During the 2015 Challenge, I explored a Plate of Oreos, which ended up taking more than a day.

End of Day 21. “Graham’s Plate of Oreos” by Beverly Shipko, Drawing on bristol board, 6 x 6 inches.

The drawings evolved into Oreo prints, which have a contemporary look that does well in California. I recently donated an Oreo print to a fundraiser for the Ardsley Foundation for the Visual Arts. Here’s John Charles, the happy purchaser.

Then came Oreo Mandala, an original composite print representing 9 of the most distinctive Oreo configurations from the contest. I have this in my house and never get tired of it.

“Oreo Mandala” by Beverly Shipko, Limited Edition Giclee Print, 27 x 27 inches framed, available 20 x 20 inches unframed.

In fact, I gave one to Webmaster Laura as a housewarming gift.

This day flew by unbelievably quickly. I had intended to do so many things besides this Oreo drawing – take a walk, wash my hair, sketch a blueberry cheesecake (having a summer show in Maine) for Saturday, catch up on Instagram, start a drawing for Sunday when I’ll be in the city – all before 5pm. About half of this happened. I can dream, can’t I?

Instead I went to see Godunov’s Romeo and Juliet (and watched them dream!) from the Metropolitan HD Opera at my local movie theater, and loved it.

The best news is that I got a chance to try and reset my body clock by going to sleep earlier. I’ll be bright and shiny for Day 27. See you then!

Day 25. Packard Swan Hood Ornament

Yesterday the Glass Hood Ornament spoke to me. Today it was the Packard Swan Hood Ornament.

While I found the Glass Hood Ornament in a Sarasota museum last year, Bonnie and I came across this shiny, elegant swan design outdoors at the Woodward Dream Cruise in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan in 2008.

Technically we’re in Royal Oak, MI, at the Northwood Shopping Center parking lot at Woodward and 13 Mile Road, which was packed with classic cars from all over the U.S. Fortunately I took a photo of the whole car (on the right below) with a 1949 Packard license plate for the uninformed.

FYI. You can see the local CBS camera crew covering the event, which has grown to be huge. Over 30,000 classic cars from around the US come to cruise Woodward Avenue, bringing a reported 1.5 million people. That’s a lot of potential Dream Cruise paintings, besides the one’s I’ve already done (Classic 1959 Dodge, Mustang, Chevy Hood Ornament).

Many of the cars are lined up with their hoods up so we can check out the engines.

Some cars have the most outrageous colors. Here I am with a chartreuse car that could burnt your retina.

Bonnie chose to stand in from of a purple car since it’s her favorite color.

The Packard I decided to paint has a nice conservative maroon color, like yesterday’s car. It was convenient to do the ornaments back-to-back so I could use the same paper palette two days in a row. And I was in the reflective mindset.

I got off to a very late start, and now I’m up at an ungodly hour writing this post. But it’s more efficient to write while the day is fresh in my mind. My goal was to get the quiet, smooth clouds before dinner. This was a moral victory because clouds tripped me up earlier in the Challenge.

The most critical part of the whole painting was putting in the crisp and straight outlines that define the shape. Mistakes at this point might be unfixable. I admit to feeling a little wobbly today so I was a bit nervous going in. A slip of the hand could turn a graceful swan into an ugly ducking.

You can see here how the reflections preceded the dark colors this time around.

At 1 am I thought I was done, and walked away to start cleaning brushes. When I came back, I decided the reflection on the car was a bit too light and distracting. So I kept going, and decided to pay the price tomorrow by staying up late – but having the satisfaction of knowing this painting was done.

That’s it for car imagery for now. On to something else, which has yet to be determined. I’m going to the Met HD Opera Romeo and Juliet at the local movie theatre, which I have been looking forward to, but it will take over 5 hours out of my day. Perhaps a drawing is in my future.

Day 24. Glass Hood Ornament

How many people do you know who went to the Sarasota Classic Car Museum in Florida on spring vacation? Most people probably opt for the beach or Ringling Museum. Under protest from Jay, we squeezed in a quick trip to the car museum before Bonnie arrived. And I was rewarded with the inspiration for this painting.

The subject might come as a surprise to new readers, but I’m a native Detroiter so it makes sense to me. As Bonnie said, you can take a girl out of the Motor City, but you can’t take the Motor City out of the girl.

During my first Challenge, I discovered that I enjoy painting details of cars when I painted my first metal hood ornament from a vintage Chevy. Next came the  Mustang decal, and finally the Jetson-like fins and lights from a classic Dodge.

Tomorrow I’ll call the museum and find out what car this horse hood ornament belongs to. It must be rare because I can’t find it anywhere on the internet. FYI, Jay perked up during the visit when he found a car owned by one of the Beatles.

Unfortunately I was so engrossed in this painting that I forgot to take pictures until the very end. You can see the photo that I started with.

Early on I thought maybe I made a mistake by not darkening the background. However, once I started painting the horse and car, there was no going back.

After laying down the background color, I used a large (2 inch) brush to smooth out the paint. The good news is that the surface looks beautiful. The bad news is that it’s impossible to touch up.

I decided to focus on the dark car for contrast, and added alizaron crimson to the palette hoping it would positively impact the background – and it did. Also, it made it easier to anchor the bottom of the horse head.

This was an ambitious painting, which is why I saved it for the last week of the Challenge. After 3 weeks of painting every day, I’m painting better from all the practice. I’m more willing to push myself and try new things such as Glass Hood Ornament.

Painting just seemed to happen today, even with all the details. I’m sure there are spots without white paint on it, but that’s ok. It’s the Challenge after all.

Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.

Day 23. Lighthouse at Sunset

Lighthouse at Sunset is a momento of our sunset cruise out of Portland, Maine this past summer.

This was one of many lighthouses we found in our search for the Elusive Lighthouse Photo. After painting a lighthouse during the daytime, I thought I would try a lighthouse at dusk, against the dramatic orange and purple sky. Known as Bug Light for its small size, the Portland Breakwater Light has great views of the city’s skyline.

I’m lucky I got a painting done at all yesterday. Jay and I had a lovely time at the afternoon party. Then it took me a while to settle down and recalibrate.

Before dinner I had about 90 minutes. Here’s where I stopped to eat. At this point, the lighthouse was much lighter and the paint much thinner.

I kept going and thought I was done at a reasonable hour, though I would have liked more time (and daylight!) to experiment with grayish purple in the sky. After cleaning my brushes late, I came back into the studio and took a last look. The lighter grey backlit lighthouse didn’t fit with the integrity of the painting.

Then I darkened it so it was more in shadow. While I was much happier with the overall look, the paint became very wet and the drawing more imprecise. I forgot to paint in part of the roof on the lower fenced walkway, but the painting was too wet to attempt it. I will next week.

I like this painting more in person. I mixed a purplish grey for the cloud and water, but it comes through too strong in the photos. I took way too many photos this morning to try and get it right. Sometimes paintings just don’t photograph well. Or maybe I was just kidding myself because the camera doesn’t lie.

So I starting researching colors other artists use for clouds. After reading about Old Holland Blue Grey on an artist website, I decided to order it before I start a car hood ornament painting that has grey background clouds in it. Old Holland is still my favorite brand of paint, and naturally the most expensive. The blues are stunning but subtle. Not surprising since Holland is home to striking blue Deftware. The Dutch know their blues!

On to the next painting. I have the whole day so I can try something more intricate. Wish me luck!

Day 22. Egg on Stove

I’ve went back to the kitchen, home of Jay’s Spatulas, for Egg on Stove. I wasn’t ready to abandon the world of food.

 

Egg on Stove is my first stovetop and first single egg painting. This is a continuation of the Egg-centric series from the January 2015 Challenge, only those were all double-yolk eggs in various stages from raw, cooking, to partially cooked. Oh, I forgot the garbage disposal version.

 

Egg Series from the 30/30 Challenge, Oil paintings on cradled panel, 5 x 7 inches.

In the post-Challenge world, I liked them so much that I executed a larger 16 x 20 series, this time including Egg on Purple Plate, which was exhibited in Cavalier Galleries in Manhattan.

A composite print evolved out of the 3 small challenge paintings.

Egg on Stove presents another viewpoint of an egg cooking on the stove. Instead of cropping in on the pan, I zoomed out to include the burner, grate, and knobs.

I worked on the drawing over several days. There was no room for error. Otherwise, my pencil drawings would show through the white.

The first stage was the subtlest light grey acrylic undercoating, which perhaps you can see here. It offers a bit of contrast to the white, and helps me see where I’ve painted before – and the spots I missed.

I had some cadmium yellow paint on my palette from Rainbow Cakes, and painted in the egg to anchor the painting visually. Next came the grate, the trickiest part, and the burners. A few lines were a little shaky, but they’ll be cleaned up after this dries so the white doesn’t muddy up.

With the background established, I could mix the appropriate greys for the pan. Basically Egg on Stove uses 3 tubes of paint – white, black and cadmium yellow – plus a dash of cadmium orange on the egg.

This was a painstaking process with lots of breaks. I worked slowly and methodically, keeping the painting surface smooth as befitting a stainless steel pan. Somehow the process was satisfying. Go figure. And I’m happy with Egg on Stove.

Jay and I are going to a combination anniversary-birthday lunch today, so I won’t have much painting time. I’ll be leaving my painting bubble for a few hours, which is welcome on one hand since my legs need a break (from standing while painting). At the same time, there’s a tinge of sadness and frustration that real life is encroaching. At the end of the Challenge, my growing to do list can’t be avoided for much longer.

Now I’ll shift my attention to Day 23. See you tomorrow.

Day 21. Rainbow Cakes

Even as a kid, I always looked forward to eating Rainbow Cakes. This platter was the ultimate. Maybe the title should be Rainbow Cake Heaven… After all, can one ever eat too many rainbow cakes?

In case you are wondering, here’s the whole platter.

The backstory is going to surprise you. Rainbow Cakes is dedicated to my friend, Bob Mawson, who passed away in 2014. I regularly attended Bob’s meditation class in Tarrytown for a few years. Here’s a photo of the young Bob.

Since Bob was ordained as a Buddist monk in Thailand, Bob’s wife, Marcia, held a very spiritual memorial service run by the monks in orange below. I’m sure Bob would have loved it. It was memorable to say the least.  All in white, Bob’s sons and wife spoke eloquently about his contributions to helping others as a healer and meditator around the world.

After the service was finished, the rainbow cake platter – an unforgettable image to this cake aficionado – magically appeared at the monks’ table.

I had intended to return to my comfort zone with a simple dessert painting for Day 21, after having a trying day yesterday when my egret painting failed. Total fail. I didn’t have time to recover since I hosted a woman’s group meeting at my house, and lost a whole day.

For Day 21, I was thinking about a single Oreo cookie, but no, I’m a glutton for punishment. In the end, I choose a complicated image, but cropped it so there were fewer rainbow cake pieces to paint.

I went ahead because I really wanted to try this, although I knew it wouldn’t be a piece of cake (pun intended). After all, I had already practiced a single rainbow cake in Plate of Cookies. Time went quickly while I was watching the inauguration, and I made major progress on the tri-colored cakes.

After dinner, I made them 3 dimensional, darkened the plate, and added in crumbs, my favorite item to paint (time for a cake?).

The pineapples stumped me. By cropping the composition, the amorphous pineapples shapes became prominent. The yellows of the pineapple and cake needed to be differentiated. It came down to the shadows to add interest.

Working on this reminded me of weaving. I went back and forth, in and out, hoping the pineapples would come together before the painting got too wet. I even printed out a larger image. This took a lot of patience.

At 1 am it hit me that we had a platter of fruit in the garage fridge with cut pineapple chunks. If only I had thought about this hours before! Studying these pieces helped, though they could be easily mistaken for cheese chunks.

The bottom line is that pineapple chunks are a challenge to paint so they don’t look like the yellow layers in the cake cake or cheese. I struggled and maybe it shows. My other pineapple experience was with Avocados, where I had to differentiate pineapple from mandarine oranges and mango. But these weren’t dominant items.

I’m not sure how successful I was with Rainbow Cakes, but I’m pleased I tried it. I have to control the impulse to keep working and fine-tune the cakes, and pat myself on the back for effort. Maybe I’ll come back to them later today (in my dreams…). 

 It’s fitting that these little cakes are commonly called rainbows which bring good luck. That’s how I felt when I met Bob. I’m lucky to have known him.

Thanks for coming by. See you tomorrow. Same time, same place.

Day 20. Peony

Last June, Jay and I woke up to this beautiful Peony in Nantucket.

Peony was a souvenir from the centerpiece of a wedding we had attended the night before. Normally there would be no point in taking flowers to a hotel room, but these were just too good to pass up.

Sara, the daughter of my longtime friend Jill from my Kraft General Foods days, got married on Galley Beach. The bride was beautiful!  It was a stunning event that even a little bit of rain couldn’t dampen. This is one of my favorite photos of the day with 3 generations  – with everyone smiling. Real smiles too. Jill is wearing the color coordinated peony-colored pashmina.

Nantucket light is beautiful, and I took advantage of it the when I snapped this photo the next morning.

I had intended to paint orchids today with more color and pattern rather than Peony. However, I think I was influenced by the fond memories in my choice of subject.

At first I planned to paint this with a soft tonality, which meant a light, if not white, background. I shifted gears when I kept hearing “be bold” in my head. And I was thinking, “Go big or go home”, an odd sports phrase that stuck in my head.

The idea for a black background popped into my head so the flower petals would have contrast. Is block bold enough for you, I was thinking? By anchoring the composition with an window on the left to reinforce the feeling of light, the painting avoided what I jokingly call the floating flower syndrome of previous flower paintings, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I just wanted to handle Peony differently here.

Clearly my thinking was influenced by my vending paintings which use black backgrounds. Until I starting painting candy in vending machines, I mostly avoided black. One tube of black oil paint lasted for 7 years.

The painting process went smoothly and I’m happy with the bold graphic quality of the outcome. Nothing like mixing it up a bit.

My next selection has to be relatively simple since I’m hosting my women’s group tonight. I’ll have to ponder this.

Until tomorrow. Have a good day!

Day 19. Snail Shell

It’s the middle of winter and I’ve been dreaming about going shelling on a warm beach, which was the inspiration for Snail Shell.

Jay and I found this snail shell during a summer walk along the water at Jones Beach on Long Island. Sometimes we have a lot of luck shelling up here in New York very early in the morning, as we did the day we found this colorful shell.

I was drawn to this by the swirling oranges against the greys and browns, and the irregular shape. I had always thought I would end up painting this exquisite nautilus from my mother-in-law, but that’s not where the spirit moved me today.

During a previous Challenge, I did a drawing of two Snail Shells, with the front and back views of different shells. While I very happy with the delicate pencil drawing, graphite can’t capture the variegated bold colors. As you can see here, I used the drawing as a reference for the painting.

Shells was coming along easily, which is what I had hoped since I had a evening meeting. It turned out the program ran late, and I was gone much longer than expected. Long enough for the browns in this painting to start drying so they were couldn’t blend (like acrylic!). I had forgotten what a fast drying color dark brown was, unlike titanium white which takes days.

When I did return to the easel, I had to repaint whole sections to blend the colors in the spirals together. Other than losing a little sleep, no harm was done.

In the light of day, I wasn’t tempted to touch it either as I took photos for this post. A good day.

On to tomorrow’s painting. Actually, I’ve been thinking about mapping out my paintings for the rest of the Challenge. So if you have any suggestions, it would be a good time to hear from you. Thanks!