One of the best things about a trip to Bruges is the CHOCOLATE. Walking around the city, you’re never more than a few steps away from a mouthwatering window display designed to lure you inside a sweet-smelling den of indulgence. The biggest challenge comes in choosing when and where to succumb to temptation.
In the end, you just pick one! They’re all good, so you can’t go wrong.
I ended up at “Chocoholic”. The name was cute, and they made it easy to choose a custom assortment of individual pieces. It was no easy task, though, trying to pick 12 flavors out of the 50 or so in the display case, but I managed to whittle down the choices and ended up with a nice selection.
I doled them out, one or two pieces per day, over the next week, savoring each one, but before I started eating them, I arranged them on a napkin and took some reference photos near the window in my hotel room, where the natural light made some nice highlights and shadows on the little morsels of happiness.
I planned my page layout and did the drawing that first day, then worked on painting the candy over the next week during my spare time. When I got home, I added the title box…
and collaged some of the packaging onto the page.
The satin ribbon from my package of goodies was used as a border below the chocolates…
…and a sweet little striped border was painted around the edge of the page, uniting all the disparate elements.
The last of the chocolates were devoured just hours before I checked out of the hotel and headed off on the next leg of my journey, but this sketch will forever lock in my memories of beautiful Bruges, where eating chocolate isn’t a guilty pleasure, it’s a patriotic obligation!
Deliciously yours,
8 Comments
So sweet Leslie! Literally! Love this!
love, love. love chocolate!
What a delicious page! Could I ask what colors you used to create the “chocolate” color? My past attempts at painting chocolate never look this good. Thanks!
I used burnt umber, burnt sienna, and ultramarine blue. Adding the blue to either of the browns gives you a deep, rich, dark chocolate color. The pieces that are warmer-looking lean more toward burnt sienna.
Great tip, thanks!
Curious….only 10 of the 12 made it into the sketch?🧐 Temptation too great?😋
I had doubles of a few flavors. I also bought chocolate covered candied orange peel, which is my absolute favorite, but I knew if I tried to sketch it, it would end up looking like something disgusting, if you know what I mean.
Thanks so much!