I Could Make A Seriously Rocking Salad

Color Splodges

Mushrooms

So the next assignment was to paint up all the produce that I drew over paint splotches I splodged around on a 12" x 16" piece of Arches 140lb hot pressed paper. I'm loving the hot pressed paper, if you were wondering. Who knew? Seriously, Tacey had talked enthusiastically about hot pressed paper a long time ago but I liked the cold pressed. Now I like both, lol. I could actually see myself switching to hot pressed. Yep, you win the (unspoken) bet Trace, I owe you some chocolate.

The other day I posted the completed orange pepper, red chili, bananas and asparagus. This time I found the mushrooms by far the hardest to tackle. When using watercolors, light colors don't usually affect dark colors that much. I mean, a glaze of yellow will brighten up any orange, red or green (tip from Tracey) but putting a light buff titanium over the umber I already had down did nothing. I ended up using the buff almost full strength and then the color wasn't right. When I finished the shadows etc. I had to be bold with the white gouache, although the photo shows it so much bolder than it actually is.

Pea Pods

Onward and upward, literally. I had to turn the paper upside down to get at the poor pea pod and his little peas. It's weird painting something upside down as one wants to put shadow on the wrong side and highlight it's bum. It was a challenge and I'm supposed to challenge myself. Done. I only started liking the pods when the white gouache was added, until then it seemed to have little life. But then all came together in the end with a little black pen. As another student said in class when she painted up pea pods, OH Snap! LOL. Kristin Dudish's painting was spectacular, here's her blog so you can check out her work.

On to blueberries again. I love the color of blueberries but they're notoriously hard to give life to in my opinion. I did them a couple days ago and I'm not sure today's are any more lively. Here's a comparison...

Blueberries Days Ago

Blueberries Today

Hmmm, I seem to devolved when it comes to blueberry rendering. The second ones don't look as sharp. I used a white pen for highlight in the first one and gouache in the second. I'll remember that in the future. The centers aren't dark enough in the second ones either. Interesting seeing them side by side.

Carrots

Finally, we get to our last veggie of the day. The carrot. All that beta carotene giving them that spectacular orange color. Good for your eyes too, you gotta eat them for the benefit, not just stare at them on the paper though. ;o) I do love their wonderful glowy orange color, don't you? That's because of one of Tracey's tricks, put yellow as an underpainting before (and even after) to bring out that lovely glow. Yellow will bring back the glow of dull watercolors in a pinch. I had overworked these little babies but with a little pure yellow overtop, TADA, fresh and new again. Can't beat that right?

Finished Paint Splodges & Produce

Tomorrow I'll be having an in-home life drawing class. No, there will be no naked men (or women for that matter) sitting on my furniture. I bought the cutest little bok choy, chili and vine ripened tomato today at the produce section. The bok choy is truly adorable, someone seems to have put it in a hot dryer and shrunk it down to a fifth of it's regular size! Seriously, it's a baby bok choy. Who knew they existed? There'll be pictures and everything!

See you tomorrow for more tales from the crisper!
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