The Promised Fruit Still Life Image

You can probably guess what this post is about can't you?


That's right! It's the fruit still life picture that I said I would do.

This type of picture is a classic exercise used in beginner art classes and in schools. It is good for developing your artistic eye and drawing objects relative to each other that are of different shapes and sizes. It is also incredibly easy and convenient as well. Who doesn't have some fruit lying around somewhere in their house? If you don't have fruit you can easily substitute vegetables instead.

As usual there is an image of the actual thing I was drawing but this time there are 2 different versions of it, one is a pencil sketch and the other is a watercolour painting. In addition to this there is another sketch I did in 2007/8 of a fruit still life (this was when I was in sixth form) as a comparison. I have other fruit and veg drawings better than this one for comparison but they are not similar enough to what I did today.

Above is a picture of what I drew and painted, an apple, a banana, a pear and a nectarine. Below is the pencil sketch of this image.

If you look below you can see a sketch of another still life image, this was done in 2007/8 and you can see how different it is compared to the one above, there is less shading and less detail but is a cleaner picture than the one above.

Below is the watercolour painting of the same photo at the top of this post. Painting isn't my forte and neither is incorporating colour. This is definitely one of my better paintings to date but leaves a lot to be desired. I think the best part of the painting is the nectarine because I think the colours are better and blend well together.

Adding colours to images has always been difficult for me because I am not sure whether or not I am choosing the right colours. Today's effort has turned out well as it is my first time doing a painting like this in a long time and hopefully in time and with practice my future paintings will be better.

It is easy to avoid doing something you aren't very good at but you can only get better if you try. I could have postponed doing a painting or other coloured piece and given you a sketch again. But the reason I decided to do this blog is to get better at painting, adding colour etc. not to give you lots of good sketches and boast or try to inflate my own ego. Success come from first failing, learning comes from first not knowing.

So that concludes this post, once again feel free to use the picture above to do a drawing/painting yourself and leave a link to to it in the comments section.