How To Paint Fruit With Acrylic Paint

Fruit and fruit bowls are easy objects that beginning artists can paint. Acrylic paints are a great medium to use when painting because it goes on smoothly and blends easily.

Instructions

1) Determine your painting composition. Some questions you might ask are: Do I want the fruit to be standing alone, in a basket, or on a table? Do I want the fruit to be abstract, modern, or traditional looking? How large do I want to fruit to be? You can observe an actual still life of fruits or work from a reference photo. This might make it easier for you to conceptualize. Start noticing on the fruit the portions that are catching the light.

2) Sketch out your drawing lightly with a pencil. Draw the basic shapes and then add details. Erase any mistakes. You can darken the lines when you come up with a final drawing. Make sure you use a variety of fruits, such as apples, oranges, pears, grapes, bananas etc.

3) Start out by applying heavy strokes of paint to your fruit. Wet your brush and run it across the paint. This will pull the color across the painting and thin it out producing light effects. You can highlight your paint with lighter highlights.

4) Utilize different stroke and colors. For examples, use a swirl of purple and black paints for the grapes. Add a touch of brown to the bottom of your grapes.

For the oranges, use a mix of orange, yellow and a touch of brown on the bottom. For apples, use a mix of red, purple, brown and a touch of black to the bottom. For the bananas, use a damp brush and work back and forth with yellow along the middle curve to show the curves and add depth. Apply little dabs of brown and green to make the bananas look ripe.

5) Also, add different shades to your fruit. Start out by adding the darker shades. The darkest areas of the fruit will be near the base and on the side. When you are done, you can add lighter values. Add highlights with a smaller brush. Apply the highlight while blending them into the main color and shadow color.

6)) Add black or brown background to your bright colored fruit to make the picture stand out.