My Post Cookie Con Hand Painting Attempt

Also known as, my week trying to be as cool as Arty.

Well, I'm back from Cookie Con, and still not even kind of caught up on all the excitement.  I'm reeling.  It was AWESOME....with a capital AWE.

I'll do a Cookie Con recap later this week (or next), but for now I wanted to talk about something particular.

So Arty McGoo was there teaching in our little troupe that weekend.  And she did her all famous hand painting.  Really, if you enjoy damp dark places and have decided to live under a rock, and don't know who I'm talking about.... CLICK HERE.

Anyway, she did her demo on hand painting and somewhere during her presentation I said (aloud...why did I say it aloud?) "I think I can do that".

Then after Liz and I chatted, and she told me how fast and easy it was to paint on cookies.  I'm all for fast and easy....

And I came home.....and had a deadline to meet...and thought....quick and easy....ok... let's do this!

And after a WEEK this is what I came up with

Yeah.....three cookies.

I have to say, I'm not very good at this.  It's fun yes, and it feels nice to paint on a cookie.  I like painting.

But it's HARD!  Poo.....

She said you have to paint like your using water colors.  That's when the little voice in my head SHOULD have been telling me to turn away from the light.  But I was on a cookie high.  There were sugar pheromones in the air in Salt Lake City and I was hooked.  So I didn't listen....

I can't do watercolors....never could.  Acrylics, sure.  Oil?  Why not.  Watercolor....I drown...I drown in a mess of shame.... shame for my lack of alliance with water color.  Even kids can watercolor.  I can not.  It's my weak spot....I don't want to talk about it anymore...

But I TRIED!!  Just to get the hang of using Wilton colors (I only owned Americolors till last week) I scribbled on the rose.  Thought....it isn't TERRIBLE I suppose.... so I moved on to the shoe....going in baby steps...

It isn't bad....really.  The hardest part was the base color.  I'm just a stickler for detail,...so any brush strokes on the background drove me nuts...i kind of like the effect I ended up with on it tho.  But, if you know my blog at all, you know I have to have detail.  I can't get detail out of it painting like watercolor.  That's why I like acrylic   OBVIOUSLY Liz can get detail out of watercolor.  Because she was born in an ocean of brushes .... awash in beautiful soft dewy colors....such is her painting...*sigh*.... anyway.

 I wasn't.

So I decided, when I moved on to the dress (days later....needed to go to the mirror and give myself a pep talk) I decided to do the wash like I did on the shoe.  But when it came to the roses, I thought, I'll just paint like I'm using acrylics.

I like it.  I'm more comfortable painting with thicker paints.

So here's my conclusion....

I'm not Arty (sob)....but that's ok.  I like me.  I am nice, and talented, and dog gonnit, people like me.....*sniff sniff*

Ok really though, here's what I think.  It's not easy.  It is fun.  It's most definitely worth giving a shot.  I DO agree with Arty, the Wilton is easier to paint with for some reason.  It's still gel like, but when painting it sticks to the brush a little better.  With some of the Americolor gels, the pigment is almost too gel like which makes it difficult to get saturation in detail.

IF I do this again, I think I would still need to do my usual thing and use it as detail.  Full on paint just might not be my thing.  And that's ok.

What I did learn...trying something new is fun.  And I can use what I learned from this experience to enhance my cookies in the future.  I'll probably be less afraid to utilize hand painting to add a little more detail to what I already do.  And more detail makes me happy :)

Anyway, thanks Arty for giving me the confidence to at least give it a shot......even tho you did pick on my height all weekend...that's another issue I have now to go along with the painting.  Thanks for that.   :)


**Thought I should clarify this.  I have painted on cookies before.  Just very slightly here and there.  (I made a basic hand painting tutorial.  But this is my first attempt at full on hand painting since attending Arty McGoo's session at Cookie Com - like full on paint from start to finish - and even then you can see I broke down and added RI details...because I just had to.  I'm not new to painting, just painting on cookies....and even then...I've dabbled**