20 cm x 18 cm; watercolor on 140-lb Arches paper

Blog Post 94

This is my take on Yuko Nagayama’s ‘Apples and Berries’. (See ‘You Can Paint Vibrant Watercolors in Twelve Easy Lessons’ (cover and pp. 2, 5, 6-11, 15. 16). I started t by sketching one apple, laying down a yellow underpainting but leaving some white spaces for highlights. After drying, I painted a lighter red tone over the yellow underpainting, dried it, and then touched a deeper red color to make the apple 3D.

A fresh apple which was lit by a desk lamp was my constant reference for painting shadows and highlights.

Brushes used: Silver Brush sable brush #s 2, 4, 6, and 8.

Watercolors used: Winsor & Newton, Daniel Smith, and Holbein