Lesson 56 Semi abstract fall fruit

This lesson was inspired by projects in Karlyn Holman's book Spirit of Spontaneity. We began with a pencil drawing of pomegranates or persimmons. We chose four colors from around the color wheel and and used these wet in wet to create a underpainting around the fruit shapes. Next we worked out a rectangle or geometric shapes overlapping our subjects. Finally we worked around the composition, sometimes painting within a shape, sometimes outside a shape to create an exciting interplay of foreground and background.


Lavonne's painting is part way done. You can clearly see the underpainting and how she has painted inside and outside edges of the background rectangle.

Marilyn painted her fruit more realistically with her rectangle lost and found in the background.

Sue let the geometric shapes run through her fruit so that they are only subtly showing in the background.

Emily's persimmons are very lifelike even though the values have been altered so that they interact with the background shapes.

We do a short critique at the end of each three hour class. The paintings from this exercise looked particularly striking together on the blackboard.