Saturday, April 09, 2011

2 Saltines and a Buttery Round

I've finished the first of the crackers.

Last time I posted a wip of this, which had the start of a background color. Once I did that, I couldn't change my mind. I continued on, and the darker I got with the background, the more color I had to put into the cracker itself. I took it as far as I wanted to, then started over on a fresh one, with no background. I decided I liked the really subtle colors in the cracker, and that a plain white background worked better. So this is the "tarted up" version, and the second one is her plainer sister.






Then I moved onto a "round butter cracker" (a generic version of a Ritz).




I'm purposely having them 'float', rather than have them resting on something, with a shadow. I like the formal portrait presentation of things. These are 8 x 8 inches (the image is actually more like 6 inches, floating in an 8 x 8 space, to allow for framing overlap).

I will do a graham, an oyster, and I have an assortment of fancier ones to choose from. Maybe I'll do a rye crisp too. The possibilities are endless. I may move on to cookies or English biscuits. Whichever way I go, I'll be into this for a while.

Haven't received the frames I ordered yet - anxious to see how these look framed. Its another reason I went with the white backgrounds - the frames are white washed, and I imagined these looking good in a pale frame, as a set. We'll see.


5 comments:

CC said...

Love these. Your focus on subtle color
changes create incredible texture. I also admire your patience.

Contemplating crackers as meditation.
You should get these seen at Nabisco etc.

Leslie Hawes said...

You are so clever, talented, and fun!

Sarah Melling said...

I just love these! The details..the occasional break in the crusty surface...wow. I can't decide which background I like more, though. Is the background the kind of thing you could add/omit digitally?

I absolutely get your obsession with these individual "catalog"drawings; I love that kind of thing. I have a couple of sets of vintage picture flashcards, which have a similar beauty. A while back, I started doing a series of 3 "architectural" views of a vegetable (side, top, bottom, without shadows, etc. Maybe I'll take a break from Illustration Friday this week and work on them...you hit the cracker aisle..I'll be over in produce!

Kendra said...

Yummy! Where's the cheese?
Nice drawings and clever idea! I kind of like the red background but then again, I'm impartial to red.

SYLVIANE said...

I love your crackers!