Paintings for a restaurant........

Scroll to the bottom of the post for today's progress.......................

I have started painting three large canvasses today (well, one at a time) for a local restaurant. I will post progress as I .....progress!

The brief was to paint some large canvasses depicting local produce from the area, the Vale of Evesham and Worcestershire, as this is a large fruit and vegetable producing region. There are certain fruits that are specific to this area, one being the Worcester Black Pear. I managed to trace some of them down but unfortunately, don't want to be rude, but they are the most boring looking pears in the world and do not lend themselves to making a good painting; very rough, dull skin and a very somber colour! (See photo below)...

So I have had to rethink using this variety! I have chosen a lovely golden coloured Williams Pear! I had done a small version of this pear to send to David Sandum in Norway for the Twitter Exhibition in Moss (5"x7") but this time it is going to be MUCH bigger (1.3mx 0.7m). 

6 Jan 2011 -

Below is today's progress - drawn up, background blocked in and starting to build up the detail slowly. The background is painted with Payne's Grey and Crimson. It makes a lovely rich, dark colour without being as flat as pure black. I have allowed the Ochre background colour to show through in places by just using a light wash over it. It is a deep edge canvas so I will paint them neatly in Payne's Grey.

I have left it at this stage this evening..............

7 Jan 2011 -

Start to build up the density of colour in the body of
the Pear with washes of pure yellow and orange and
white highlights. 

Then it is adding the detail to the surface of the skin. Loads of little spots! Quickest and most effective way to do this, is to mask off areas and splatter thin paint onto the surface. Fun too! (At this stage, the cat tried to sit on it while it was on the floor!)

Not finished yet. need to work on the linen napkins and the surface of the table but it is getting there. Will probably be finished by the end of the weekend. I then have a huge canvas to paint with Asparagus! 


8 Jan 2011 -


Not much to do today to finish off the painting. The pear needed darkening in on the left hand side with some ark orange washes built up in layers. A few more 'blemishes' were needed on the skin and I found the easiest way to do that was to blend them with my fingers so that the brush strokes were not so obvious.....

Finally, it was a bit of detailing put in on the linen napkins and I am happy with the result. I would welcome any comments about what might need changing! : )

'Proud Pear'

Acrylic on canvas

130cm x 70cm