Mixed-Media Panini Painting

Hello! This was my first piece back after almost 2 weeks of no proper painting. I sketched a bit, but I was too busy for anything else. Whenever I tried to paint, I was just frustrated with the outcome and didn't finish. However, the busiest time of the school year is over now and slowly, but surely, I am getting back into my art. 
So last Sunday, after finally having a complete day of rest post-student art show, I sat down to start over. I decided I was not going to be to hard on myself because I hadn't painted in a while and went for a food item in the mixed-media technique that I started with all those months ago. Below I will explain a bit more about the process. For this painting, I used Strathmore Watercolor Cold Press paper (300 Series). 

I am usually terrible at doing real preparation before painting. For this, I actually took the time to clean my Koi watercolor box in order to use it as a palette and made the color mixtures for my painting. This picture shows the first phase of my usual mixed-media approach, which is the watercolor phase (by this point the painting already has a couple of layers of watercolor). 

Here is the watercolor phase completed (except for the background shadows). You can see how I went on and on with layering until I felt ok with the values. Then, I left my painting to completely dry for a several hours. 

This is what the piece looked like after I had already worked in most of the Prismacolor values and textures. I made a point this time to really select only the colors I would be using. Usually I am all over the place. After I finished with my Prismacolor Soft Cores, I went back in with watercolors to add my gray shadow under and around the panini. I allowed this to dry for about an hour. 
To finish up, I used some white acrylic paint for final highlights. 

Hand drawing practice I started with on Sunday before my mixed-media piece. I want to continue with my basic sketching of things I find difficult, which I started on Spring Break.