Learn Banana Watercolor Painting-Control Light and Depth

Last week's banana still life watercolor class assignment, these adjustments to maintain the brightness of the premise to add changes, the color changes in the differences between the subtle do very challenging 🙋

We will introduce how to draw bananas with different kinds of yellows and greens, if you are interested, please read on!

Banana color recognition:

1. Light and dark areas
The main color of banana is yellow, and the glossy side can use lemon yellow or cadmium yellow as the base color.

For bright areas, more water can be used to lighten the yellows and make the color brighter and more transparent, refer to the toning box in the upper left corner.

The darker areas can be deepened by adding orange or a small amount of brown to create the shadow of a banana, see top right.

If you are curious about the difference in green color that can be achieved with different blues, you can see the small picture in the lower left corner.

2. Moisture concentration:

The depth of the color is controlled by the proportion of water and pigment concentration. When there is more water, the color is less transparent, such as the bright side; when there is less water, the color is more saturated, such as the dark side.

How to paint a banana.

1. Prepare the palette and pigments.

The main colors used are: yellow, orange and blue. Prepare these colors and mix them on the palette.

2. Draw the basic outline of a banana

Using a pencil, lightly draw the outline of the banana, noting the overlap between the two bananas and being careful to maintain proportions.

After drawing the shape, you need to understand the structure of the banana surface transition, which will affect the position of the light side and dark side of our coloring, as follows

3. Start laying down the watercolor colors.

Mix a small amount of yellow color with a lot of water and lightly brush it onto the glossy side of the banana first, this layer can be more transparent.

Using a less watery yellow color with a touch of orange, start picking up the dark side of the banana.
Pay attention to the direction of the light source, and you can vignette the shadow partially by observing it.

Use a mix of greenish blue and yellow to create different variations of green to place in the banana shadow position.

While the bananas are still drying, you can use stronger orange and brown colors to enhance the details of the bananas, such as the spots and the stems. Each time you mix the colors, observe the moisture level and adjust the saturation of the colors.

If you want to understand the relationship between color brightness and color scale, you are welcome to click this article aboutArticles on how to mix pigments

I hope this introduction to watercolor can help you recognize and understand the color of bananas, if there are any subjects you would like to see or painting methods you would like to know, please feel free to leave a comment or private message me, I wish you a happy painting!

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Other Extended Other Watercolor Articles.

How to Paint the Light and Dark Layers of a Monstera Leaf
How to Paint a Vibrant Yellow Bell Pepper Still Life
How to Watercolor Grapes: Master Light, Shadow & Gradients

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