As with paintings of children, paintings of food has its own unique attraction. From a simple piece of bread to a festive feast, paintings of food have a firm place in art. As we have just celebrated Christmas, for the final lesson of the course I asked all learners to source an appropriate photo, or indeed take a photograph of a Christmas cake or any other food that suggests the festive season. I decided on two topics, a cut Christmas cake and a full Christmas dinner spread. There were some practical reasoning in my thought process, I had been asked to put together a lesson on painting glass and also shiny objects. Although this was not taught in detail in the lesson, I could show in my demonstration how to approach this subject.
When I paint glass I also impress draw on to the wet painting, this is a really simple way to suggest glass. I wet the area of the glass, apply a wash of the appropriate colour, in this case, red reflection and yellow liquid. I use a dried out pen, with a fine nib, and impress lines on to the glass. When I paint “shiny objects” for a study of this kind I use a silver leaf pen. However, if I was completing a study in detail of a shiny object I would work from light to dark, using a variety of colours which will be dependent on surroundings, light and environment.
When painting meat: again I use impress to suggest the marks or marbling in the meat. For the turkey I underpainted with yellow and overlaid a wash of ochre mixed with a light brown. I then took my dry pen and randomly marked the shape to suggest the markings on the skin. Obviously, you can use this technique in a far more uniform way e.g. for the pattern on a lemon.
There are always plenty of ellipses in food paintings, practice drawing circles at slight degrees of angles to perfect drawing ellipses.
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