Today was the first proper frosty morning of this autumn and just for laughs, and to get away from the delicate intricacies of the bramble, I decided to tackle a chili pepper, my first one too. With their cheery colour, fun architectural shaping and gloriously shiny skin, chillies bring a real pop of colour to dull November days. So, with the rather apt tune, November Rain by Guns and Roses seeing me on my way, I started a little series of sketchbook studies.
The overall shape of a chili, appears quite straightforward, although I did need to make sure that the stalk was following the correct line. I also wanted to have a good number of wrinkles in there too, to give plenty of character, so on the drawing, I made sure to outline the areas of high shine carefully.
The colour of a chili pepper is a really luscious, bright red, so the tube of gorgeous Cadmium Red Deep came out of the box again. For the deeper shadows, I used a deep purply-red to get some depth and shape to the fruit and kept loads of fresh white paper for shine.
The overall shape of a chili, appears quite straightforward, although I did need to make sure that the stalk was following the correct line. I also wanted to have a good number of wrinkles in there too, to give plenty of character, so on the drawing, I made sure to outline the areas of high shine carefully.
The chili Although I had to shift it to get rid of the shadow from the window |
With the first washes of Cadmium Red Deep mixed with a little Cadmium Yellow Light. Dropping colour in whilst the paper is still damp allows the early build up of colour and tone |
Some of the colour testing before adding it to the piece. here i have also started to add colour to the stem using Indanthrene Blue and Lemon Yellow |
Re-wetting the entire length of the chili, I was able to build up more layers to give a more 3D effect. A slightly darker mix was used to give a good contrast with the shine. |
Pulling the colour out towards the middle gives the streaky appearance that chillies have in the wrinkles of their skin |
Shine is a difficult area to get right as too much white can make a piece look false and too little makes it look flat. The Goldilocks moment of just the right amount has to be balanced and in order to make sure the washes didn't go where I wanted white paper, I used making fluid. Once rubbed off, the areas can be blended and softened to look more natural.
Adding a deep green to the stalk. Some of the really deep red mix works well with a little more yellow and blue to give a really dense green. |
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The finished piece. |
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And the colour notes. Well, it is for the sketchbook after all. |
1 comment:
So interesting to read about your process with these--your pepper turned out beautifully! Thanks for sharing.
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