Working Out

Some time ago, I sent a friend a card that featured a cut-down watercolour painting I'd done of bananas and other fruit displayed for sale at a market in Tahiti. As my friend is half-Tahitian, I knew she would appreciate the subject. She appreciated it so much that she chose to have it framed.

Here is the original painting which was 5"x7".

And here it is reduced to 4"x6" and framed.

Recently, my friend contacted me and asked me if I would create two more paintings on a similar theme. I was excited to do it partly because it presented an interesting challenge. I created the original painting from one of my own photographs with only minor creative license on my part. However, my friend asked if I could include certain foods which meant creating paintings from a variety of reference materials. That said, overall, she gave me free rein to do what I felt inspired by artistically.

I began by writing out her requests on a piece of paper where I could easily see what she wanted so I could accommodate them as much as possible in my planning (and to make sure I didn't forget anything). That meant listing the fruits and vegetables she wanted, specific requests about some of the food such as showing an open passion fruit, and that she wanted lots of bright colours. Equally important was the size. She wanted to frame them in the same frame as the original work so the size of the paintings had to be 4"x6". In addition the paintings were to be hung in the same room so the proportions of the objects in the new paintings had to be similar to those in the original.

Next I began collecting together the photographs that she sent me, my own photographs, as well as some some watercolour studies I'd done in years past. 

I started by doing a rough drawing of some compositions to try out ideas and see what I could fit in.

I noted some of the changes I wanted to make when I did the final drawing and what colours I would use. Not only did the compositions have to have a good balance but the colours did too. There are a lot of yellows and yellow-orange, and yellow-greens in tropical fruit and it was important to separate them where possible.

The next step was to draw the final composition, first in pencil and then in pen. You can see more changes I made from the sketches above.
I showed the (L-R) papaya, mango, and coconut open to provide interest since piles of the fruit aren't that interesting

 Another challenge was including the taro plant. It is sold with the leaves cut off but my friend wanted them included, if possible. The way to do it (as it is a tall plant) was to lie it down in the front. This also added some interest to the objects behind sitting side by side.

One of the things my friends had requested were tropical fish. As you can see they didn't make the cut. The fish are sold on ice on separate stalls so it didn't make sense to include them among fruit and vegetables on colourful cloth-covered tables.

 I made the drawings a little larger than 4"x6" because my friend lives in another state and I don't know how much overage was needed for framing.

I included the blue patch in the background in each painting to link them to the original.

I made some of the passion fruits purple for colour balance. The photos I had were yellow on the outside but that would have been too much yellow and I saw photos of purple ones on the internet.

The final step was sending images of the finished work to my friend who thankfully loved the paintings.