Up And At It Before 10 A.M.

For once, I was ready to go early today. And I'd wanted to get back to the dessert series, which I've been ignoring lately in favor of more fun stuff. The red color of the Strawberry Shortcake painting beckoned, so I squeezed out some color and went at it:

Strawberry Shortcake, Guilty Pleasures Series, © 2020, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

Then moved on to this; forgetting that I had been planning to stick to finishing just a few of the desserts, I caught a glimpse of the close-up photo of the crackly-surface detail and hatched a plan on how to proceed; First, a midtone layer of squiggly, diagonal strokes in a combination of Yellow Ochre Pale and two yellows; then some Brilliant Yellow Pale (more squiggles) and highlights in white. Every stroke had to be rounded and organic, too.

Crème Brûlée, Guilty Pleasures Series, © 2020, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

 It looks more realistic. At the end, I placed a few spots of that odd dark color— don't know what the ingredient is— in just a few places here and there. Next time I work on this I'll have to tone down the table color, which looks too bright and very artificial. And every piece in the series needs some refinement on the plates.