Summer is finally here ! What better to celebrate but painting red currants !?
It’s a bit more difficult for me to paint fruits than flowers, but it’s also by trying different things that i’ll be able to grow my skills ! In order to prepare my work with watercolor, i decided to paint this image digitally. It has nothing to do with traditional painting, but it’s a good tool to work composition and colors. It also helps me to see all the little details i need to make this image understandable. I often prefer to do this prep work with gouache in my sketchbook but i did need a new wallpaper for my computer and my phone so it was the perfect excuse to make a little bit of digital art.
For this watercolor painting i did have quite some trouble with the paper. But it has more to do with summer weather here in Barcelona ! This week has been quite hot and a bit humid, we can feel summer for real now ! But my paper react differently than it used to. The surface is drying super quickly but it stay wet inside the paper a bit longer. The result on my paper is less color bleeding and moving in one another but a weird feathering of color sometimes on area that feels dry but aren’t fully dry. But now that i know that i can react and improve for the next time !
Painting red currants in video
Supplies :
Brushes : Escoda Último nº18, Escoda Último nº8 rigger, Silver Brush Black Velvet 1/4″ dagger.
Paper : Arches hot pressed.
Colors : Ultramarine blue (Sennelier), Amazonite genuine (Daniel Smith), Nickel azo yellow (Daniel Smith), Aussie red gold (Daniel Smith), Winsor red (Winsor & Newton), Quinacridone burnt scarlet (Daniel Smith), Lavander (Daniel Smith), Wisteria (Daniel Smith), Acrylic ink Sepia and Indigo (Golden), Opaque white (Schmincke), Granulating medium (Winsor & Newton).
And here you have the finished painting (click to enlarge) :
