You can paint your cake and eat it too.

In the last post I commented that I have a tough time finishing a painting in one session. I was pretty much talking about still life, or any painting that needs refinement. Now I have painted landscape studies that I felt were finished in a 3 hours session, but even that is rare. I suppose I like a bit more finish, and for me that takes repeated visits to a picture.
Coincidentally, the day after that post I think I did an OK job knocking one out in a single session. It is a painting that I wanted to finish quickly. So, after a bit of time arranging the scene, and a quick sketch, I painted as fast as I could trying to get the canvas covered in 30 minutes. I probably covered the canvas with paint in about 40 minutes and then just tweaked the shapes, adjusted the value and color until I was happy. The whole painting was finished in about 4 hours.

 Cake and Cookies, 12" x 9", oil on canvas, 2010

I wanted to do a painting of some baked goods. I thought cake would be fun to paint. I stopped at Graeters Ice Cream shop to buy a slice of cake and a few cookies. It was very hot out and I don't have AC in my van, so on the trip to my studio with these edible still life objects, the cake suffered some damage. It was a bit smashed on one side and the heat caused the top half to slide off the bottom a bit . I had to do some artful reconstruction of the cake to make it paintable. The side had to shaved a bit to clean it up and some of the icing sculpted back into shape. This was a delicious bit of work. I had a variety of cookies. There was a lot of yellow in the picture, so I left out- and ate- the yellow iced cookie. The pink one complimented the cake icing well.
Just so you know that I am not the wasteful sort, all the food in the picture was consumed (except the milk- it had been setting out in my hot studio for 4 hours).

This painting will be available in a charity auction. You will be able to bid on this painting and all the proceeds will go to the charity. The event is actually a bake sale, and as I don't really bake (Unless making toast counts as baking) I decided to paint some bake goods. The charity is for Nick, the son of a good friend of mine.
Here is some information about the event if you would like to help out.

A Benefit Cake & Pie Auction on behalf of "Nick Finn"

	Pattision Elementary School, 5330 South Milford Road, Milford Ohio

Nick is a 9 year old little boy who attends Pattison Elementary School. Nick has been battling a long term illness called "Pineal Germinoma" which is a tumor that greatly affects a gland in the middle of his brain. Nick's quality of life has been greatly compromised for the past three years as his medical needs has changed dramatically. 

Currently, Nick receives rounds of chemo at Children's Hospital and has platelet and/or blood transfusions as needed. Our goal for the auction is to take care of any special needs/wants for Nick, offset the Finn families financial needs ~due to loss of work and excessive medical bills.

Please let us know if you can either donate a cake, pie or any other special treat and we are also collecting: * gift cards, or gift filled baskets for a raffle by August 9th to one of the chair people.

There is a Facebook event page where you can find more info and contact someone if you have any questions like, "Please tell me how I can buy that wonderful painting of a cake?" 

Click here