Hot Cocoa Set--Masa and Normal

THE HOT COCOA SET: ON ARCHES

Supplies: Arches 140 lb cotton paper; cobalt or French ultramarine; yellow or gold paint; magenta paint.

Sketch the pattern on Arches 140 cold press. USING A LARGE BRUSH, Wet the entire paper and work color into the background wet-into-wet. Be sure the paper looks shiny wet as you drop in color and let it blend it together. Try not to let red/yellow/and blues blend in the same place or you will get browns and grays. I tend to put more blues on the right side because that will be my shadow side.

Dry completely. Use cobalt blue or ultramarine to lightly shade the right side of the cups and pitcher.

Put a second glaze of blue on the far right and shadow areas of the handles. It should start to take form, and you should begin to see the shape of the cups and pot turn. 

HOT COCOA SET : ON MASA PAPER

Start your masa paper as usual with a wet into wet background. Dry completely and sketch your picture in heavy pencil or permanent ultrafine marker. 

If you have done it in pencil, darken some of the background so that you can see the outline of the main objects. If you did it in pen, you don't need to do that yet. You are going to use cobalt or ultramarine to create shadow on the right side of the china pieces, lightly at first, just as in the Arches version. Again, like the Arches version, add another glaze of blue to the sections on the right that have the most shadow. 

Here is an earlier version done in pencil, and it will give you an idea of how it might look when close to finished. I did the dark background first to define the shapes; blued the shadowed areas; then painted in the details. This is still not finished, but it shows how the original color you put down creates interest in the picture.