EDM Challenge #12 is “Draw what you ate for dinner.” I don’t think anyone wants to see what that looks like at this very moment, so I did the next best thing and drew the ingredients. In truth, I didn’t use the pasta sauce. I just threw a little olive oil, basil, and garlic powder over the spaghetti. It’s actually got more fat and calories than the pasta sauce, but boy is it tasty.

Anyway, I wasn’t going for any sort of realism here; just playing with a PITT pen and some watercolors. This is the first time I’ve been able to get any sort of vibrancy out of the paints, so I’m happy with that. And the composition isn’t terrible.

My lines got a little out of control in a couple of spots. I didn’t realize until after I scanned this that everything is skewed a little off-vertical. All those years of keeping my wallet in the same back pocket must be catching up to me.

I’m really starting to consider laying down a pencil underdrawing before I drop in the ink on these. But tonight was really about forcing my butt up off the couch and spending a little time with the sketchbook. Every little bit helps, right?

I probably should have worked a little more shadow into the side of the pasta box. There’s really no visual cue about the direction of light at all other than the small ground shadow.

And I picked entirely the wrong red for the pasta sauce. But the only other red I have is Alizarin Crimson, and I wanted to try to stay with a purely transparent, non-staining pallet (only three colors here: Rose Madder Genuine, Cobalt Blue, and Aureolin); which did come in really handy when some of the red bled into not-red territory.

Color mixing is a real weak point for me. I know I should make some color wheels and do some paint chips, but that is so boring and tedious, I’m not sure I could bring myself to do it. I know I’ll have to do it at some point, but I can feel my back tighten up just thinking about it.