"Yellow Raspberries"

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"Yellow Raspberries"

5 x 7 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Yellow raspberries is a fruit I never though existed, it was a surprise for me to see them at the grocery store.  I was beyond excitement to paint these guys, it's challenging though to properly show their true colors in a painting.  Yellow is a difficult color to paint it can easily look to glowy or too dark and lose its yellowness.  It's a great way though to challenge yourself to see how you can control its values and properly render this beautiful color.

I started with the usual dry brush approach for the drawing, I didn't want to start out with an underpainting like I have been doing with the others.  Reason being it takes a little longer than usual to finish a painting, I think its a great technique to do when doing a painting that you have more time invested.  I just think for the sake of these alla primas its better just to go straight on with color.  Don't get me wrong though as I said before its better to do an underpainting, it gets a lot of the drawing and value issues out of the way from the get go.  

After the drawing is complete I start on the first raspberry by stating the local colors first, I used cad. yellow, raw umber and cad. orange.  

When the local colors are stated and have the form turning, I go back to the shadows and take them to a finish.  I do the same with the lighter areas by just applying a bit of titanium white for the highlights.  I use the same color scheme for the rest of the raspberries.    

Again stating the local colors first and making form turn first, I also make sure that all my edges are soft in this stage.  When thats completed I go back to the shadows and take them to a finish, I also add the reflected lights to complete the shadows.

Then I apply the highlights to the raspberry and take it to a finish.

The raspberries towards the back are blurred out to recede with the background.  I also state the background to blur the raspberries even more.  I the colors I used are cerulean blue, naples yellow and titanium white.  I go around each raspberry and soften the edges to the level they need to so they can recede as much as I want them too.  

Once they are taken to a finish I start on the wooden base by stating the local colors first and getting a feeling how the light will fall on the base.  In the beginning I went to thick with the paints, which is alright I was able to learn how to sculpt it around to get the look I was going for.  As you may know by now I usually like to go from thin to thick and this was not the case.  I treat my paintings the same way how I draw, by the pressure applied to the brush is the same philosophy I approach my ball point pen drawings.  

This is the finished painting, I went back tot he wooden base and added the lighter values and details in the shadows.  Thanks for stopping by and viewing, I hope you enjoyed!