The Lemon
Current student work & critique from the first painting prompt of The Fésole Club Papers.
Homeschool mom
This lemon shows very careful rendering in its shape and the subject’s placement on the table seems correct. Very nice observation of exactly where the light was hitting, too. I think this artist would have a lot of fun playing with watercolor more, adding water to loosen up the medium a bit and finding different color combinations that produce the dark colors needed. Hint: the finer the pigment the more saturated the color will be. The cast shadow is spot on and not fussy, as some of the green shadows are.
Homeschool mom, 2nd attempt
The background brushstrokes here are distracting. This is mostly due to quality of paper, not necessarily skill of painter. An obvious dark end of the lemon is lacking so it’s making it look a bit flat.
Homeschool mom, 2nd attempt
Vibrant and luminous color washes on this one! Your tints tested on the side help me to know that you were really yearning for each right color. The observation you show in the lemon’s reflection in the table surface give the lemon a lot of spatial presence. What an improvement from the previous painting! The lemon also has a really nice highlighted areas as well. On your next one, take some artistic license with background and lighting, or maybe a different fruit (as time allows).
Painter aged 5
The range of values in this lemon really give it volume. Very good attention to detail especially with the shapes of the ends of the lemon.
Form III student (7th/8th grade)-
This painting shows great patience. The play of the two tones of green is very nice. The cast shadow really sets the lemon neatly in space and the fruit’s highlight gives it volume. If you can step back from your work next time before you set your outlines in ink, I bet you could correct the shape of the lemon for better accuracy. As it sits now, it would be falling to the left.
Painter aged 5
I love this lemon. The tendency is to over-work watercolor, but this young student wisely chose to let the white of the paper shine through. I bet this painter also discovered that watercolor always dries lighter than the colors we lay down wet. He may also want to fix the line in fine pigment liner and erase any extra graphite. Well done.
Painter aged 13
Great persistence! Each gets better. Keep going. See if you can show some foreground right in front of the lemon. Very nice subtle gradation of the highlight on the lemon as well. A picky question- do you have a finer pigment liner? You really want that boundary line to disappear and not upstage the subject.
Want to work this prompt on your own?
(No submissions for critique are being taken at this time.)
PDF text of the chapter above is provided by Riverbend Press.