How to draw and paint texture
The ability to portray texture effectively is an important artistic
skill, yet many artists have difficulty in depicting it realistically
without making their paintings and drawings look over worked.
Different artists try to tackle the problem with regard to a wide
variety of subject matter. The bloom on a peach, the richness of a satin
garment, animal's fur, the roughness of a bark, plant, leaves and
flowers to name a few. It will be of value to all artists and beginners
who wish to add that touch of realism to the textures portrayed in their
work. You will learn how to achieve the required effects using pen or
pencil, charcoal, pastel, oil or acrylic paint, water colour or gouache.
You will gain knowledge how to exploit a particular medium to best
advantage, as well as how and when you might consider using a mixture of
media or a special technique to make the textures in your work more
realistic.
Fruits and vegetables
When you are choosing a still life subject try to fetch objects to
paint that really excite you and provide a challenge in terms of
technique. Fine paintings can be made from very simple subjects such as
one or two apples, selection of fruits or vegetables. Fruits, vegetables
and other edibles have always been among the most popular painting
subjects. Not only do they display a marvelous range of textures and
colours they also stimulate in providing ideas to convey an interesting
range of textural contrasts.
Media and methods
Although many of the textures of fruit and vegetables and food can be
rendered equally effectively in a number of media it is worthwhile to
consider their relative strengths and weaknesses by trying out several
different ones. You will find that some are well suited to represent a
particular texture, while others will have to be stretched to breaking
point to be even half as successful.
Portraying texture
* Fine paintings can be made from very simple subjects
* Colours and shapes will challenge your skills on many different levels
* Use a paper with a slight grain so that you can build up the drawing
* Blending colours together with the finger will produce a soft effect,
with colours and tones merging together |
Drawing fruit and vegetables can be an excellent introduction to the
idea of representing texture. The wide range of different surfaces,
colours and shapes will challenge your skills on many different levels,
in particular testing your ability to adapt your drawing style to suit
the subject. The pencil is one of the most versatile of all drawing
implements, offering an almost infinite range or marks and effects which
will suit most approaches and styles. Take care, however not to grip the
pencil as tough you were going to write with it, as this will always
lead to stiff and rather formal drawings. If you want to try more
suggestive possibilities of the pencil, don't sharpen it all the
time-experiment with a worn, rounded soft-leaded pencil.
For those who find it difficulty to draw fruit and culinary subjects
in monochrome, coloured pencils can be an exciting alternative. To get
the most desired effect be sure to use a paper with a slight grain so
that you can build up the drawing. If the paper hard and smooth, the
colours will lack depth and the result will look rather thin.
Water colour
There are certain fruit and vegetables that seem to lend themselves
well to the delicate, translucent effects of water colour. For example,
gentle, transparent washes can beautifully convey the quality of inner
light seen in thin-skinned fruit such as grapes or plums. It also seems
the perfect medium for rendering the delicate membranes of the skin that
covers a vegetable such as the onion or garlic. Shiny fruit and
vegetables with clear highlights are also suitable subjects, but because
water colour is such a fluid medium it is less easy to make it describe
rougher textures.
A disadvantage with water colour is that it is difficult to make
major corrections, so you do have to plan from the outset, making a
preliminary drawing and paying more attention to the placing of
highlights, which are vital clues to the texture of the fruit. Observe
the painting showing the moist heaviness of ripe strawberries and gentle
highlights of the oranges captured by working wet-in-wet so that there
no hard edges. Notice the lightly overlaid washes on the top of the
oranges, suggesting their slightly pitted texture and the careful
reserving of the pale yellow highlights. The paint has been controlled
with great skill.
Pastel
Pastel is a wonderfully sympathetic medium for drawing soft-skinned
fruits such as peaches or apricots. The vivid colours and opaque, matt
surface perfectly recreate those of the subject. The dry crumbly nature
of pastels also make them highly suited for rendering foods which have a
similar texture, such as cakes, bread and biscuits. One thing to
remember about pastels, however is that the effects you achieve depend
very much on how you use them.
Blending colours together with the finger, a piece of cotton wool, or
very tight roll of paper with a point at one end will produce a soft
effect, with colours and tones merging together. This technique is
well-suited to smooth objects such as eggs. You do not have to stick to
one method throughout. You can also let the paper help you describe
texture. Pastel can be done on white paper, but coloured surface are
normally used because it is difficult to cover the surface completely
and specks of white showing through the pastel marks tend to detract
from the picture. Used in a linear way, pastel can be used to convey
detailed and complex textures and colouring.
Using oil paint
Oil paint is such versatile medium, with the possibility of rendering
so many different textures in such a variety of ways, that it is almost
impossible to choose anyone technique over another as particularly
suitable for culinary subjects. One of the great beauties of oil paint
is that, because it takes a long time to dry, you can carryout a good
deal of blending and colour mixing on the surface of the canvas or
board.
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