Painting a Still Life Setting with Strawberries

Demonstration on How to Paint Fruit with Complimentary Oil Colours

Sep 8, 2009 Rachel Wills

Strawberries offer the ideal opportunity to explore bright colours against a subdued background. This step-by-step demonstration in oils shows how.

Rendering vegetables and fruit in an oil painting are amongst the most satisfying experience for the artist. Not only do they offer fascinating shapes and colours, they are also edible. For this reason, a painting containing food in the raw state such as from the garden never fails to draw the eye.

How to Capture the Richness of the Strawberry Fruit in a Painting

In order to emphasise the strong reds that are found in strawberries, placing them onto a subdued background such as a sheet will never fail to draw the eye. Much thought must be given to setting up the still life in order to create a balanced composition and increase the likelihood of a satisfactory painting.

The Art Materials Required for a Still Life Study in Oils

1. A Setting containing strawberries
2. Acrylic paint in ultramarine blue
3. Oil paints in the following colours: titanium, pthalo blue, ultramarine, pthalo blue, permanent rose, cadmium red, burnt sienna and burnt umber
4. A 12” x 16” (30.5 x 40.5cm) piece of MDF
5. A size 3 and size 6 round sable brushes
6. A ½ inch wide bristle brush
7. A palette consisting of a china plate or varnished wood.
8. Small pot of artists’ white spirits
9. A few rags
10. Soft pencil

Applying an Acrylic Imprimatura for the Undercoat

The painting surface was overlaid with a thin wash of acrylic paint in ultramarine blue. This would provide a contrasting under-colour for the red strawberries and create a cool undercurrent to the painting. Such an under colour is known as an imprimatura. The still life setting was then carefully sketched out with a soft pencil.

Creating a Subdued Background in Oil Paints

The pale sheet was painted in first in order to prevent the colour of the strawberries to contaminate the clean colours. For this, varying amounts of titanium white was applied onto the area represented by the sheet, but a thinner mixture was used in the shaded areas to allow more of the imprimatura to show through. This would suggest tone (fig 1).

Sketching in the Highlights on the Vase

The vase in the background was expressed via varying amounts of titanium white and a little burnt sienna. A little ultramarine was introduced onto the shaded areas. A dab of pure white was applied for the highlight. The colours used on the dark areas of the vase were used to reinforce the tones on the sheet (fig 2).

Painting the Reds on the Strawberry Fruit

Now that the subdued colours of the background have been painted in, the strawberries may be rendered without fear of contaminating the pure colours in the background. With close observation, one will notice that strawberries consist of different types of reds from orange to violets. With a thin sable, cadmium red was mixed with a little lemon yellow and applied onto the palest areas of the strawberries. More permanent rose was introduced for the darker areas of the strawberries. Definition was added by outlining the strawberries with burnt umber (fig 3).

Highlights and Shadows

The green tops to the strawberries were suggested by dabbing viridian and lemon yellow using a thin sable. To suggest moistness to the strawberries, two types of highlights were identified: bluish white and white. White with a little ultramarine was dabbed onto selected areas of the fruit. The palest white consisted of flecks of white (fig 4). The painting was completed by filling in the background behind the table with ultramarine and burnt umber.

How to Oil Paint a Still Life Setting with Strawberries

Strawberries provide the ideal opportunity for the artist to use pure colour. The still life setting had been set up on a white sheet, the bluish shadows providing contrast to the rich reds of the strawberries. The pale background was painted in prior to the strawberries to avoid the whites being contaminated by the red. The strawberries were painted from pale to dark finishing off with the highlights. Close observation is the key to capturing strawberries in a still life oil painting.

The copyright of the article Painting a Still Life Setting with Strawberries in Painting/Drawing is owned by Rachel Wills. Permission to republish Painting a Still Life Setting with Strawberries in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

A Still Life Study of Strawberries	Sketching in the Subdued Background Tones (fig 1)	Dabbing the Highlighted Areas on the Vase (fig 2)
Suggesting Various Reds on the Fruit (fig 3)	Rendering Highlights on the Fruit (fig 4)