Sketching Stuff Activity Book: Towering Slice of Cake

A few months ago, I found Doodlewash.com, started as a blog by Charlie O'Shields and now also a community of watercolor artists. It's a cool site with tons of inspiration. Particularly awesome: years' worth of monthly art challenges. I'll be using these when I tackle my 30-day craft challenge. 

I put O'Shields' Sketching Stuff Activity Book (the food version, because I love food) on my wish list and my parents bought it for me for my birthday (thanks Mom and Dad!). This is my first painting from the book. Affiliate links here and throughout the post. 

The towering slice of cake was not meant to be the first project for readers to do (it's on page 38), but it was the one I was most excited to paint so I did it first. This book provides a lot of information about sketching and painting, along with many plenty of hints and tips, but does not have step-by-step instructions to recreate the projects. I like this, as it allows me to more easily take the inspiration in my own direction rather than copy it exactly. 

Below is how I made my own towering slice of cake. My method is almost certainly not how O'Shields first drew his! Feel free to use my instructions, or totally do your own thing. And then buy your own copy of the Sketching Stuff Activity Book. There are so many cool projects in it. 

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Towering Slice of Cake

Materials:

• watercolor paper
• pencil
• watercolors (I love this travel set so much I use it at home, too)
• black pen

Steps: 

I used scratch paper to play around with a variety of different angles for my cake slice. I found it most appealing when the frosting makes the shape of the number seven. (Random, I know.) So I actually started by drawing a large 7 very lightly in the middle of my watercolor paper. 

I drew a short line at the base of the 7 to be the bottom of my cake, then drew a diagonal line upward and toward the left that mirrored (approximately) the angle on the right. I extended the top of the seven to meet up with that line. 

Then I drew three parallel lines to divide the cake into layers. Then I added a second line to each of the frosting lines until I had this:

I created a generous wedge by drawing a line the starts at the tip of the 7 and travels diagonally up toward the right. Then I added four swirls of frosting. 

I added concentric ovals to the bottom to make the cake plate, then added a diagonal line for the edge of the countertop. 

Then, I painted. I started by adding a light wash of color to each layer of cake and then to the top of the frosting. While that dried, I added a wash to the countertop. Next, the wall. Finally, the plate. 

With the colors for each space defined, I went back to each in the same order. I added layers of colors to create shadows and left light spaces for highlights. 

The last thing I did was add the main shadow. 

Overall, I'm happy with my cake. I see areas that could use work, but that just motivates me to do more painting. But first, I obviously need to do some research in the form of eating cake.