Skip to content

Painting Fruit Instead of the Golden Gate Bridge

I had a few unexpected hours available to paint and decided to not waste that time doing something useless like weeding or vacuuming or painting the Golden Gate Bridge (just your basic endless repetitive chore).

I worked on the commissioned oil painting, 6×18″ for my friend/customer to fit between 2 other fruit paintings in her kitchen. She saw the painting Citrus Row and requested the addition of pomegranates and persimmons but gave me the freedom to arrange and fill with whatever else I chose. Instead of adding those P fruits, I started a new painting.

She sent me this photo to show me where she wanted to put the painting.
Back wall first
The fruit on the far right is a fuyu persimmon, not a tomato. I don’t know why I started on the right side instead of the left, which is normal when I draw so that my hand doesn’t drag over the completed area.
This picture looks worse than the previous one because the paint was quite wet and the late afternoon light made it very reflective.
Incomplete: the table, stem on the pomelo, and the cap on the fuyu. and the edges and signature.

It is quite a thrill to be able to mix and use all these bright colors. Of course, having painted this at the end of the day’s light, it could look rather wrong when I see it in normal daylight.

Yeppers, the table needs work. The leaf on the tangerine is blending into the table. The shadowed part on the orange on the right isn’t right. The fuyu persimmon might need some color correction. The shade from the lemon on the pomelo looks like an outline. On and on and on it goes.

It’s a wonder that any paintings ever get finished.

3 Comments

  1. I’m not a fan of fruit paintings, although I do like fruit (but not persimmons. Or pomegranates. But everything else in your painting, and tomatoes. You did know tomatoes technically are fruits? But I digress. . . .).

    I hope you all get the rain that’s promised by the end of this weekend, although the snow level is supposed to be 9,000 feet, to high for MK. Later, hopefully later!

    • Rain, please God, rain!! It is fine to rain high in the first storm of the season.

      Yes, I did know that about tomatoes. I wonder if avocados are considered fruit. Maybe they are nuts. I am nuts about them.

      • If a fruit is defined as a fleshy thing with seed(s) inside, then yes, I suppose an avocado would qualify!

Comments are closed for this article!