Painting Is Like Making a Cake

I often tell my students that painting is like making a cake. You can't do any decorating until after the cake is baked.

Many times when we look at a painting all we see is the icing, the myriad of little details that capture our imaginations. And often as painters, we want to dive into those details before the foundation is laid. Before we've baked the cake.

To illustrate this, I'd like to take you through the process of a recently finished painting. The steps are the same whether the work is large or small, but since it takes more time to complete a large painting, I've actually remembered to document it as I went.

Step one is drawing the image on the canvas. You can grid the image and the canvas if you need an accurate drawing, which is what I did for this painting. You can draw with a pencil, but I just used thinned Burnt Sienna and a brush. You can see that I started putting in the darkest shapes in the shadows. Normally I would place all the darks first with the thinned paint but I couldn't wait to start on the mule so I skipped that step.

I was in such a hurry to start the painting that I forgot to tone my canvas first. I knew I wanted a warm undertone to help recreate the hot afternoon, so when the drawing dried, I used a layer of thinned Transparent Orange over the whole canvas. When you look at the finished image, you can still see that color peaking through.

I started with the mule because he was my favorite part of the photo. There are lots of schools of thought on where to start painting: some people say work from the top down, some say place all the darks first, some say start on the focal point. I've used all those methods and I don't have a recipe. Each painting is different. In this case, I was so drawn to the mule that that's where I started. Also, I knew I could paint him, I'd done a small study. I wasn't so confident about the man. 

It's a good idea to work on all areas of the canvas and not try to bring an area to completion before moving on to another element. This will help your elements stay related. Since getting this first step took multiple days, you can see how I progressed.

After all the elements were painted, I went over the canvas a second time, area by area, and darkened shadows and made corrections in shapes.

It's easier to see the process in close ups. It took multiple passes before I was satisfied. You can see in the first photo that I have all the parts painted. In the second photo, I darkened some areas and intensified some colors and also started on the details of the tack. The third photo shows that I added more detail more detail. Excuse the glare at the top of the photo that makes the ears look lighter than they are. The final photo shows the completed mule, again darkening, lightening and adding yet more detail to the tack and eye.

I hope this gives you som insight into the steps I use when creating a painting and that it encourages you to create a firm foundation before you start in on those fun details!

If you would like to see more process photos of paintings I am working on, or if you have any other topic that you want to see me cover, let me know in the comments.