Mixed-Media Doughnut Art Process (with Pictures)

7/17/2017

Hey! Nice to see you!

Here is a little mixed-media piece I just finished today and it is based on one of the pictures I took during my pastry photo shoot last week. Below I will be explaining a bit about the process I followed to get to this.

Mixed media food illustration by Erika Lancaster

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Above is the initial picture I took and on the right is what I actually used as I was painting. I used my handy-dandy Photoshop skills to clean it up so that my eyes didn't get distracted by the background. I also rotated the doughnut a tiny bit counterclockwise.

Preliminary sketch before watercolor painting

Initial pencil sketch.

Once again, I used a gray water-soluble pencil to create this initial sketch. I like using water-soluble pencils because the lines completely disappear as I am doing the painting. However, a lot of artists like using regular graphite pencils.

At this point, I try to get the proportions as close as possible to the reference picture, but I don't get super paranoid about it being identical to the picture. I also add in shapes that map out where the lightest and darkest values will be. For me, it is still a challenge to leave the lightest areas white since the beginning!

First layers of watercolor paint

Here is what it looked like after about three layers of watercolor textures/values.

Final layers of watercolor paint

Here is the painting after about 5 layers of watercolor paint. After this I couldn't help myself and I took out my Soft-Core Prismacolor pencils and went in to add more textures/values until I was satisfied.

Supplies