Painting fruit

In this session on 22/10/14 I had to paint fruit which was arranged on a plinth.  The tools I used were a 2B pencil, hog hair paint brushes sizes 8 and 10, acrylic paint (blue, yellow, red, white, black), A2 cartridge paper, pot of water for cleaning, pot of water for diluting the paint, paper towel to dry my paint brush, a pallette and a couple of sheets of wet paper towels put on my pallette to stop my paint drying.  

I sketched the outline of the fruits onto my paper using perspective, proportion and scale.  I then mixed my paints together to get the exact colour of the fruits. To ensure I got the right colour I held the colour up to the fruit.  I made the lightest and darkest shade and tint on each of the fruits.  I then started to paint the darkest shade of the fruit first and then adding the lighter tint, blending them together on the paper with other hues of paint I had made.  I then made a shade of grey for the background and tried to add a slight bit of colour from the fruit for the shading of each of the fruits,  

I am quite happy with my painting as I haven't painted in a very long time.  I think I got the scale and proportion quite accurate and think the banana looks quite realistic, but I think I need to work on my contrast of tones and shading and trying to be more precise with colours.  

To extend my skills I will research other paintings on the internet.   

Research

I like this painting of the two peppers because the artist has used the colours really well to show the shaded and highlighted areas.  I also like how they have used a slightly green tone to show the shadowing in the table.

I chose this picture as it shows the actual object painted and the painting itself.  I think that the proportion in the painting is excellent and I that the shaded and highlighted areas are demonstrated really well, however I don't think that the artist has got the correct tone of colour.

I really like this painting as the artist has made the tomatoes look smooth and has blended the red tones in well.  I also like the different tones of green that have been used for the stems.

I think this painting is amazing.  The artist has made everything look extremely realistic and you can clearly see that so many different colours, shades and tones have been used.  Each individual item appears to have the right texture to it and everything looks so fresh and tasty.  I would love to be able to paint to this style and standard and hope that I can achieve this one day. 

I chose this painting as I liked how the black background made the red strawberry stand out.  I think the red tones used make the strawberry look fresh and juicy, and the green tones in the leafy area give the impression of a rougher texture.