Tomatoes, Tomatoes

Tomatoes 1/ 4 x4/ oil on board/ Gifted

I have been reworking old tight paintings (again). This little 4 x 4 painting (left) is much better with the looser brushwork.

As I was reworking the 5 x 5 tomatoes below, I was reading a book on drawing. The author  likened shading changes to pixels in a photograph. He suggested that to render the shapes in a human form, gradual (pixellated) changes in value were required. I raced to this lower painting which was on my easel, failing for a second go. I added tiny steps of color changes (thinking of the pixel analogy) with the goal to achieve realistic rounded tomato forms.

Tomatoes 2/ 5 x 5/ oil on board/ HH Gallery

I have posted both to FB and asked for preferences. I predict that the artists will like the more (though very slight) abstracted version above.

I am off to buy some green pears...

The book on drawing is: The Artists's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing by Anthony Ryder. It is excellent.