Exercise: Drawing using oil pastel

I used cartridge paper for this with a good range of colours of oil pastels. I tried to pick a variety of vegetables with different textures and colours. I used a fair bit of overlapping to create shadows as well. 

This took me a really long time experimenting with the different colours, blending the colours, and all the layering. Lots of layering and patience was needed with the oil pastels! But I later realised that 'less is more' and that I didn't need to over complicate it; I didn't need to create a photographic looking drawing. 

I followed the contours of the vegetables, using circular motions for the sprouts, arched lines for the parsnip and carrots, and so on. For the sprouts I discovered an interesting technique of holding the pastels upright to produce circular motions - I think these vegetables actually took the longest to produce! The red onion also needed a lot of layers for its many colours. This was quite hard to produce, and I think I could have made a better job on this with more practise in blending colours neatly. 

I used the method of choosing the areas to leave white, then choosing the darkest shadow areas and finally adding soft light tones and gradually building up the layers with darker tones. The final task was then to use the darkest tones to very slightly add the final details. The white space was very effective for texture and form. The white pastel was quite useful too for additional white areas of shine.

For the composition, I chose a brown paper bag for the vegetables to lay on. The rough, brown bag seemed to be a less distracting background. I'm quite pleased with the composition of the vegetables, with the negative space used around them, though I did have trouble with positioning the top carrot. 

The best things about this drawing are the light/dark contrasts, the textures, and the forms of the vegetables. I think they look three-dimensional with the shadows I've drawn on and the contours have really helped bring out the shapes. 

I read a really good colouring tip when researching the artist Eyvind Earle on his website:

"...And there are certain laws such as the law of duality. Everything has its opposite. If I want a bright light in a painting, I must have a dark shadow. If I want a colour to look very warm, I must also have a very cold colour, and so on and on forever. ..."

That concept has stayed with me and now every dark shadow line I use, I leave a white highlight next to/behind it. This is shown on the sprouts, for example, where there are overlaps of leaf. 

Things I could have improved on in this drawing were the composition, and more practise in blending the colours for a smoother effect, such as on the red onion!

Vegetables using oil pastels