Painting nine tomatoes.

Another project from my Still Life Watercolor Class Fall 2024.

Still life set up. Tomatoes on set. Pumpkins watching from the wings. I composed a vertical and a horizontal composition. For reasons unknown to me I usually lean to vertical. But I explored a horizontal for those who prefer that orientation.

Investigation of values. If painting realistically is a goal, understanding the darks, mid-tones, and lights, in your subject is key. I fooled around with the Notanizer app for notan and value studies. Also looked at photo in black and white on my iphone. And then I posterized the image in photoshop. None of this is a “must do”. I sometimes just get interested in viewing all these options. Perhaps procrastinating simply applying my ass to chair and painting. Yes, even after all my years creating, starting is still sometimes difficult!

Drawing idea. Try this in your sketchbook and see if it is helpful in placing the tomatoes into your picture plane.
Draw a square around the tomatoes. Draw the big negative shapes. Place the little tomatoes.

Thumbnail study in sketchbook. Exploring color. Lemon yellow, scarlet pyrrol, maroon perylene (for the dark reds) or permanent alizarin crimson, sap green, french ultramarine blue.

My workspace. Practising a full size painting, 9 x 12ish (inches) for the demo after having painted the thumbnail and color studies.

Work in progress. And where I stopped. Did use a small amount of masking fluid on the highlights.

Student’s paintings.