Drawing fruit and vegetables in colour

Check & Log
Your composition should occupy most of the paper’s surface. How much negative space do you have left?
In all three drawings I was conscious of this and feel I have been quite successful, but less so with the drawing using coloured inks and markers. Probably because I arranged the lighting to cast long shadows on one side (intending to dramatically enhance the appearance of the negative spaces around them) with the light falling on the objects on the opposite side, producing dramatic contrasts of tone – light on one side, dark on the other. I couldn’t arrange things in a way which looked balanced and the cast shadow at the far right looks as though it is pulling off the corner of the page. Despite this I concentrated intently on the shapes formed by the negative spaces, trying to achieve a balanced composition by carefully arranging the objects and the lighting, together with the resulting shadows. I tried to fill up most of the paper’s surface with the objects and and cast shadows, even running some off the edge of the page in the coloured pencil drawing. In the pen and ink drawing I thought about cropping the paper on the left hand side but didn’t. Although I have done this in the image on my learning b/log. With the other two exercises I wouldn't say I had a problem arranging the objects to fill up most of the paper. The only problem with them was arranging them in a balanced way, but I got there eventually. Of course I could have zoomed into the views more, but then I think the negative spaces would have been less apparent.

Using hatching to create tone - watercolour pencil

What I have learned from drawing the details of fruit and vegetables:
Using hatching to create tone:
When using coloured pencils on their own in the past, I couldn’t take to them. The colours appeared weak compared to other mediums, but when I tried them out by firstly applying dry pencil shading, then a damp (not wet) wash over the top, it gave more intensity to the colours, helping to build up depth and definition where desired. Shading with a pencil point dipped first in water (on the grapes sketch) intensified the depth of tone even further – perhaps too much. Yet when I looked at them from a distance they looked more convincing than I expected.
On reflection, especially with the second and third sketches, I can see I got too carried away experimenting with different techniques rather than concentrating on just hatching alone. But if nothing else it was probably good practice for future drawings. I used loose hatching on the orange segment, rolling the pencil between my fingers. A technique I used for the first time was to use the pencil dry, blend with a slightly damp brush, once dry, hatch or shade with dry pencil. I used complementary colours for shadows, as well as cool muted colours. Blue being the complementary of orange was used in the areas of shadow. I also decided to use it in shadow areas generally, to help unify the composition, particularly as it seems to combine successfully with the dark sepia I used to tone down and help darken the shadows. Whereas I think sepia alone would have been too colourless and ineffective. I also think blue is effective for cooling down areas of deep shadow, helping to give them depth and recession.
Dip pens and markers – when doing my experiments, I discovered that using lighter colours first (under darks) is a good idea; if things are done in the reverse the lines and colours will be visible.
I also discovered that I really enjoyed using ink from a medicine or ink dropper – squeeze and instantly a blob of ink appears, which can simply be pulled outwards with the end of the dropper to form lines of varying thicknesses, reaching outwards in all directions - had to be careful though, otherwise the ink could easily run all over the paper. Dip pens (changing between 3 different nibs) worked surprisingly well when I tried them out on 90lb watercolour paper, considering its uneven surface,  yet were hopeless on a certain absorbent sketch paper. I’m guessing that maybe the watercolour paper was sized better, making it less absorbent.
Altogether I did three or four preliminary sketches of the fruit in different arrangements with the dip pens and markers, but they aren't illustrated here.

Using markers or dip pens - final drawing

Oil pastels
As I’d included a sliced section of red cabbage in the arrangement I thought it wise to practice possible techniques to use for the texture of the sliced section. Whether I filled the dark tonal areas first, then the lightest or the other way round, I noticed the colours merging into one another, darkening the light tones and lightening the darks. Eventually I tried a really light sketchy technique, simplifying the detail significantly, leaving areas of the paper showing through. This seemed to be more successful than all previous attempts. Although the paper was a buff shade it was noticeable and at last I think I began to realize the meaning and intention behind using the term ‘let the white of the paper break through’ in the instructions - the metaphorical ‘white’, designed to help discourage people such as me from using a too heavy handed technique which shows in the resulting merged and dulled down appearance. This may be fine for some effects but I don’t think it was the intention on this occasion.
By using a cotton rag dipped in odourless thinners in parts of the background and gently dabbing it onto areas of dry colour, this resulted in gently spreading the colour giving a subtle muted effect. I used this technique in the background, which I think helped it to merge more softly into the distance, helping to make the fruit and vegetable arrangement more apparent in comparison.
As the red cabbage looked very isolated from the rest of the group – being the only object not overlapping with any other, I tried to integrate it by adding touches of the colours from within it, throughout the rest of the composition, which seemed to help promote a more harmonious effect.


What I found most challenging about this part of the course:
 During the process of drawing the cos lettuce with coloured pencil - using hatching to create tone, initially I wasn’t enjoying filling the veined leaves – getting impatient with the complex network and my enthusiasm was starting to wane. But I decided to persevere and eventually started to notice some semblance of recognition appearing. I could make out pattern and shape in them and some directional movement – however the central area is inaccurate (see sketchbook). The final drawing has only one lettuce leaf, and this was fairly straight and flat in reality, whereas I previously sketched the whole lettuce. I think the sketch version works better as a three dimensional object because of this. Although, adding plenty of tonal shading and cast shadow on and around the lettuce leaf helped its 3 dimensionality. On the part furthest away, using a little artistic licence - adding more curves would probably also have helped. When sketching the individual pieces I have the distinct impression I got too carried away by detail.
Building up what I thought was adequate colour and tone on each object, without going overboard, proved a little tricky, particularly with the pear in the first drawing, as it had a stubborn tendency to look flat and distorted. I noticed that even after applying what I thought was sufficient build up of varied yellows it still looked rather colourless - but I suspect by then I had already added a bit too much purple and sepia in the shaded areas, trying to obtain more three dimensionality. So I added more rich dark yellow in an effort to balance the effect. I was a little nervous of using purple for shading on the pear as it is such a strong dark colour, but I think it worked better once I warmed up the look of the whole pear with deep gold yellow near the end. The process was helped by repeatedly moving away to view the drawing from a distance.


For some reason I had more difficulty arranging the objects in the dip pens and markers exercise (above), trying to achieve a sense of balance, once the shadows were included. Because the bottom right hand side shadow runs of the edge of the paper it seems to pull the whole composition in that direction, causing it to look bottom heavy. The shadow being so long and dark doesn’t help matters either. The final drawing seemed tedious and I felt I had completely overdone some of the colours and layers, to the point of deadening the effect in places. The cast shadows became very dark, whereas beforehand I thought they were too bright, so I added the darker colour, which I think it needed, but it is probably too dark. I think the first sketch gives a better example of cast shadows, as they appear more vibrant to me in this one, without looking over the top.
I wanted to include the complementary hues of violet/yellow with red/green in the shadows, some red from the apple and yellow from the banana, but the risk of the colours merging and mixing into a dull mud was quite high, so I had to be careful with this aspect. Fortunately I don't think it turned out too bad and the underlying colours are visible, adding interest and depth, which I was  surprised about, considering how many layers of colours I applied in some areas. I did get lots of prior practice, scribbling around with and overlaying a multitude of  colours in my sketchbook, so maybe it paid off a little.

Using oil pastel

 I was getting increasingly frustrated at the length of time it was taking to arrange the objects for the oil pastel drawing – over and over again, still not arriving at an interesting composition and yet often when I turned away and happened to glance at some other fruit literally thrown into a couple of bowls nearby, I found their arrangements somehow interesting. However, I couldn’t use these as they were mostly just one or two types of fruit without sufficient contrasts of texture and shape i.e. oranges and bananas. I wondered if I was thinking about it too much and just becoming fussy to the extreme, but from what I’ve read on the subject it does seem to be a not too uncommon problem! On the whole I was quite pleased with this drawing. What I like about it are the variety of textures and the objects look quite 3 dimensional, picking up the directional light effectively. There is a sense of depth also created by the overlapping nature of the objects. However, the blinds in the background are too distracting. I realized my error and tried to blur them with a turpsy rag but it isn't sufficient, and - as my tutor pointed out - the line between the top of the sliced red cabbage and the blinds should be more broken up ie. it would look more interesting if its shape at the top was angled so that it doesn't run parallel to the slats.