30 Days of Drawing Food

One of my creative goals for the year was to do a 30-day craft challenge. I chose to do 30 days of drawing food. While focusing on a single subject or using one medium for 30 days would have been better in terms of improving my skills in those particular areas, that didn't appeal to me. I wanted to draw something different each day and I wanted the freedom to use paints, pens, colored pencils, chalks, or whatever else struck my fancy that particular day. 

I've already shared four of my drawings, which I made into tutorials: the donuts, popsicle, Chicago Dog, and the hamburger. I'm not going to share all of the remaining 26, but I did want to share some that I either really enjoyed making or that taught me something. First, this blueberry muffin. This was the first food painting I did without sketching the shape in pencil before going in with paint. This gave me a certain freedom that I didn't expect and really liked. It also gave me a great chance to work on blending and shadows.  

Drawing this ketchup bottle was a good challenge. I used only a #2 pencil, so all of the shading comes from the pressure I used rather than from different lead hardness. 

My method for choosing each day's item was to either pick a food that crossed my path, or dig around in the kitchen until I found something I wanted to draw. This is the first tomato from our garden....

... and this was my fortune cookie from take-out Chinese. 

My most common subject, by far, was fruit. With this strawberry, I tried to replicate it exactly...

.... while I went for a more exaggerated, graphic style for this banana. 

Some items were fairly easy for me to draw, while others were far more challenging than I'd expected. One of my most difficult subjects was a waffle.

I ended up using watercolors for the majority of my 30-day challenge, which I hadn't expected. I would have guessed that colored pencils would have been #1, but I only used them for four of my 30 drawings. They worked well for this quick sketch of goldfish crackers. 

One of the most valuable lessons I learned from this challenge was the importance of posture. I relaxed way back in the chair while painting this wine glass. I was satisfied with the perspective until I sat up and realized my painting was really distorted!

I typically spent 10-15 minutes on each day's project. I only spent 5 minutes painting these Jelly Bellies. I photographed them with the packaging still there because I loved the way the painted Jelly Bellies looked as if they'd spilled out of the actual packaging. 

There were a few days when this 30-day challenge felt like a chore, but overall I enjoyed the project. I gave myself permission to try new things (and not feel obligated to share them here) and definitely learned a lot.