I am on a pastry kick as of late and since I ran out of panels to paint I’m just sketching everything I can before I leave for Epcot. This Poppy Seed loaf came to me yesterday. I do all my sketching and color roughs in Procreate on an iPad. This saves me a ton of regret because I can quickly see if something’s going to work or not without wasting paint. I learned a long time ago that this is not a sign of weakness, but rather a necessity for me. I do not visualize my art in my brain, I work everything out on the page so to speak. This is why I have so much anxiety over creating in public on the fly. When I’m signing at Disney and a guest asks me to sketch a particular character my brain seizes up. I have learned to come up with doodles ahead of time that I’m familiar with so I don’t disappoint anyone.

I decided it would be a good idea to start the background washes on four paintings today. All 4 panels were sealed and sanded so it was just a matter of mixing their respective colors and start laying down layers to get the right opacity. Except one was silver and another was gold. Notoriously difficult colors in acrylic to get a smooth finish. So I brushed on one flat color for each panel. Good. As each dried, I’d move on to the next one. Good. Then my hand jerked while holding a wet panel (with the first coat of silver) and it landed on the floor face down. Ugh. Moved on to the next one and did the same damn thing. Can’t just pick them up and quickly brush them smooth as the gold and silver are almost gel-like. After a couple more coats, drying and a little outlining, I dropped one again.

Note to self, don’t try to do 4 paintings at a time.