Enjoying Desserts Without The Calories

Years ago, my daily creative outlet was Watercolor. I loved watching the colors flow and move across the paper, changing in intensity depending on how much water and pigment was on my brush.

My watercolor style is realistic. I became obsessed with seeing if I could capture the natural essence of my subjects.

My favorite subject to paint was and always will be desserts.

I love the beauty of desserts. I observed the highlights and shadows playing off one another and then tried to mix the hues that captured the cookie or cake before me.

I always aim to see if I can make my painting pop off the page, using my knowledge of color theory, observations, and paint strokes to create a two- or three-dimensional picture.

One of the more challenging colors to paint is chocolate. How do you make the chocolate and Caramel come alive on the page, not just make it look like brown mud? Well, this is what I came up with. I would use yellow Orche and burnt Sienna colors for Caramel to capture that rich light brown yet golden yellow of Caramel. I would blend Burnt Sienna, Captain Morgan, and Dioxiazine Purple for milk chocolate. For the shadows, I would blend Dioxiazine Purple with Warm Sepia.

As you can see, I would never use brown. It's too plain and boring. As an artist, I must make the subject interesting and bring out hues that catch the viewer's eye.

Dark Chocolate colors took me some time to feel comfortable with blending. It's such a rich, dark color; how would I paint a Dark Chocolate glazed top for a cake without it looking black and flat? After experimenting with different color blends, I created Forst Green and Crimson layered on top of a heavy-handed Magenta with Warm Sepia.

Watercolor is about experimenting with different shades and water amounts to see what works and what doesn't.

One tip for people interested in Watercolor is to buy cheap watercolor paper and use it as your color blend library. When you develop a color combination that works, note the color with a sample of that color. That way, when you come back one day, you have your cheat sheet of color blends.

I can paint my favorite desserts with my Silver Brush Black Velvet brushes and Winsor & Newton pan watercolors. If my sweet coloring is more pastel, I use Sennelier La Petite Aquarella watercolors, which tend to have more bright hues.

Can you tell I love desserts? Trust me, if I could eat one every day, I would. But then I would have Diabetes and other health issues. So this is the best of both worlds: I can stare at my cookie or cupcake of the day, enjoy it for a few days, and not have to worry about the calories!

Win-win!

Also, there is something about admiring a piece of cake or how cookies are stacked. The look makes me happy. The colors are vibrant, the shapes are appealing, and the meaning behind the item can bring on happy memories. When I work on a dessert piece, happiness and contentment fill me.

My paintings are painted using Arches Cold Press 300 g/ms. I use the rough grain of the paper to help me achieve the crumbles and cake texture of the piece. I only use Hot Press when illustrating with a pen before using Watercolor.

These days, I am focusing more on writing poetry and short stories. I will return to my paintbrush and find the latest cake or pie to Watercolor one day. But for now, I enjoy using my words to describe how I feel about my watercolor art.

If you enjoy watercolor, let me know some of your favorite subjects in the comments!

Thank you for reading.