Friday, October 29, 2010

"Fuyu Persimmons"

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"Fuyu Persimmons"
8 x 10 in
Oil on Canvas Panel
Hi everyone I hope you guys have a great Halloween weekend!  What your costumes gonna be?  I saw these fruits at the store and was intrigued by them, they look as if they're a mix of tomatoes and oranges.  Their name is "Fuyu Persimmons" thats what it said on the tag at the store, pretty interesting looking fruit.  I really like the intense oranges and yellows that wrap around the skin, the leaves on the stem also give this fruit some character.  It was also nice playing with the composition, having the two fruits playing along the edge giving some intense drama.
I started with usual approach of raw umber and no mediums for the drawing stage.  After the drawing was done I filled in the background using cerulean blue, naples yellow and titanium white.  I like filling the background it lets me work the edges better in the foreground.
Then I covered the base using ivory black, burnt sienna, an cad. orange.  For the lighter values I used burnt sienna, cerulean blue, and titanium white.  With the edge of the base I softened it a bit to give the illusion it was going back into space and it'll also bring the fruits to the foreground.
I then start covering the darker values in the first fruit, I used ivory black, cad. orange, and cad. red light. At this point I'm putting the color notes in the right areas without mixing them perfectly, once the colors in the right spot I start blending them to where there suppose to be.  Then I start the same process with the middle values using cad. yellow light,  and cad. orange.
Then I fill in the lighter values using just titanium white and mixing it into the middle values.  After the body is done I start on the leaves going from darker values to the lighter ones.  I used Ivory black, cerulean blue, and cad. yellow light.
Then for the middle and lighter values I used the same mixture as before but with some titanium white.  I'm keeping some edges soft and other a little harder to push the values as well.
After the first one is done I moved onto the second and used the same color mixture as I did with the first one.  Again I'm laying the color notes in the right areas and blending them afterwards to the look I'm going for.  After the darker values are done I move onto the middle and lighter values, again using the same mixture as the previous fruit.  
I then start on the leave portion of the fruit using the same palette as the previous one, going from the darker to lighter values.  
This is the finished picture, it was a lot of fun painting this one.  It was also challenging painting the subtle values of these fruits, there were hints of reds that were hiding to pop out certain sections.  It was a constant learning process to see the colors going from one value to the next.  I hope you enjoyed this one, thanks for stopping by!





2 comments:

Virginia Floyd said...

Really nice, Jonathan. Your value changes are amazing. I'm glad you aren't one of those painters who keeps their pictures so small. I love clicking on the painting to enlarge it and study the details. Thanks for sharing!

Paul Coventry-Brown said...

Lovely painting, so warm and inviting.
By the way, 'fuyu' means Winter in Japanese ;-) persimmon is 'kaki', I used to eat them dried when I lived in Nagano, everyone hangs them up in strings outside their houses.