I decided to use vegetables in this exercise – the colours are so rich, vibrant and varied, as well as have different textures and surfaces, especially when cut open.
I played around with various vegetables but ended up sketching a cut red pepper, a slightly opened garlic bulb and a banana shallot. I sketched these in a soft pencil so I could better gauge the tones of the objects. I particularly chose a pepper firstly because of the strong colour, but also because it would give strong contrasts of light and dark because of its structure and the ‘ribs’ within the pepper.
I liked the limited palette these objects would create, so also decided not to include the shallot in the final composition. I also felt this would make for more interesting shapes along the bottom of the composition. The tea towel they are sitting on is also white with red so would reflect the colours of the objects.
I then played with the composition (using white paper to cover various areas) and decided upon an almost square composition. I felt that cropping would make for more interesting negative space (especially at the top around the pepper) and would focus more on the pepper.
As a quick first colour study, I placed an acetate over the sketch which I coloured to show the main colours and added a dark background to enhance the form of the pepper and garlic bulb. I used oil pastels to do a more detailed study – felt these would be best because although I have a limited colour range, it would show the vibrancy of the colours to enable me to decide whether the strong colour contrast would work well.
At this stage I also experimented with a plastic net (actually from an onion bag!) to create the texture effect of the waffle fabric. I decided to try this in order to stop myself being too fiddly with the fabric and to give a looser effect.
The main lines were drawn in on A2 canvas paper with a dilute brown and, once happy with the composition I used a neutral gray for the background and also for the fabric – once I had done this, I decided using the net would be too fiddly to show the folds and direction of the fabric so only used it in a few areas. The rest of the painting was completed in oils – the peppers using two shades of red (cad red and crimson alizarin) and yellow. I mainly used the yellow for the lighter areas as adding white made the paint too pink which was not the shade I wanted to achieve.
Once I had painted the main areas of the pepper and the garlic, I decided to darken the background as I felt the lighter grey was too pale and dull and so I painted over with a dilute black-brown using a large flat brush to give a textured effect to contrast with the smoothness of the peppers.
Painting shown here after third session - main objects completed. The garlic was painted using shades of white, grey and cream to achieve the muted tones and gradual tonal changes. As the garlic had been sitting in my studio for a week or so, it began to sprout so added further green tones to the painting to contrast with the red. At this stage, the main area left to complete was the fabric, but I needed to let it dry further in order to do this.
Nearly finished here! Fabric was painted more loosely in one session using dilute grey, white and red paint to achieve the woven effect and show the folds in the fabric. I have actually lightened the shadow area here as previously, the area under the pepper was too dark and flat.
Once this has dried fully, I will add further the shadow under the peppers and garlic, and also the depth of tone under the edge of the tea towel.
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