This was the first piece I made with my painting mentor! I initially hadn’t been sure of what our first official lesson would look like. The very first lesson, where my dad and I had met with him in his studio, was an introduction with a few painting demonstrations on his part. I was intrigued, and was curious about what my first project would be.

My teacher had a box of donuts from Dunkin in the fridge, and he said that he had decided they would be a good starter piece. We played around with the layout of the donuts and studio’s lamps and lighting before deciding on this one, on the blue ceramic plate.

I was applying my experience with oil painting classes at Fleisher to this, but it was definitely different. I got to use an easel, and instead of linseed oil and turpentine, I was using a liquin medium and gamsol mineral spirits. Fancy. And I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the painting when it was complete.

Some of the techniques were new to me at the time, and I still use them regularly now. For example, using a brush and a paper towel to spread a light combination of medium and burnt sienna paint across the canvas, to neutralize the stark white. That’s most of the vibrant orange color peeking through at the bottom of the picture, which was conveniently also the color of the fabric the plate was set on.

During this lesson, we focused a lot on the shading. My teacher pointed out the unique blue chroma of the highlight on the chocolate donut (left), as well as the bright yellow highlight of the donut’s lower right side. He wanted me to really emphasize the highlights and the shadows, which is still something I’m continuing to improve in my art. Painting the sprinkles was a challenge as well—they were clustered, irregular, and a multitude of colors. But the hard part was ensuring that they wouldn’t turn out “flat.” This required paying attention to the shadows under the sprinkles, falling onto the pink icing.

sprinkled

mirror