Drawing Fruit and Veg in Colour: Using Hatching to Create Tone

I complete this exercise over a long period of time between 6th and 21st March 2013. 

I started out by experimenting with drawing individual pieces of fruit in my sketchbook with coloured pencil which I worked into with water soluble markers. Although I had hated the original exercise on stipples and dots, I found I enjoyed building up texture and colour with coloured stipples and dots. This worked particularly well for the texture of a clementine.

After this individual objects I drew several thumbnail sketches to try out different compositional ideas. I tried various open and closed compositions in landscape and portrait orientation. 

I eventually settled on a tightly cropped composition in portrait orientation using a basket in the background for textural interest. I thought this gave a bold composition with the two clementines drawing the eye in in the lower left corner, the pear pointing into the picture and the banana preventing the eye from exiting on the right hand side drawing you back into the picture.  Unfortunately when I moved on to make the final drawing on A3 paper I didn't translate the composition well onto the larger paper. I feel I should have stuck with the tight crop as the edge of the pear just slightly poking off the side of the page looks unintentional as all the other fruit is contained within the page.

I was quite pleased with the foreshortening of the banana and with the texture of the apple and enormous lemon. The clementine in the foreground didn't  work so well - I obliterated the highlights and it ended up looking very flat and overworked.  Reviewing the picture, I really wasn't happy with the composition and I also realised that the shadows were not dark enough as I'd fallen into the 'it's a white plate' trap. The other thing I realised was that the drawing I'd produced didn't have much to do with hatching to create tone. It was more about stipples and dots for texture. I thought I'd try again and produce a drawing about hatching this time.

I worked much more quickly this time. I chose peppers and tomatoes for the boldness of their colour combinations. I also liked the contrast between the shiny waxy outer surface and the ridged and less reflective inner surface. The interiors of the peppers were like caves and chambers with a very architectural or sculptural feel to them so I decided to do a very tightly cropped and close- up composition. I used layers of hatching in coloured pencil to build up the tone and the form. 

I prefer this drawing to the fruit drawing. I like the bold colours and the close up visualisation of the interior of the peppers. I think the gloss of the exterior of the pepper could have been better captured in another medium. I found a beautiful example of this in a painting by Felix Vallotton which I have annotated in my sketch book.

I think that my drawing could be improved by simplification. Concentrating on one or two of the peppers and leaving some more background negative space would perhaps have been less invasive and provided more impact.