An Apple a Day...

I was flipping through all these free magazines I started getting,  I was looking for something to paint.  I realized there weren't a lot of 'nature' images in the women's magazines.  I found lots of pretty faces, and a hundred different cremes and shirts, but very few larger photos of natural things.  I noted a few different ads were using apples, and decided to take a slice at it.

The results were a good study in refraction of light and color, shadow, and trying to 'create' the shape of a sphere.

Even though I liked a lot about my finished product, I noted things I need to develop-- I need to review where my highlights are BEFORE I paint.  I need to work my shadows and background colors first - not sure why I haven't gotten in this habit yet.  And, I need to be willing to get dark -- my apple gets very red, but I need to add more purple where there is almost no light hitting the apple, to give the proper saturation and hue on the dark side of the apple..  

This exercise really made me work to move my shading/layers to keep a spherical curve with changing values.  I adore my apple slice, but as I wasn't having to deal with reflection or 'roundness', the apple slice wasn't the challenge of the others. 

Michael refused to be outdone though - his apples were much more photogenic as he pushed the saturation levels much higher.  He also has a better feel for the shadows created by the image - mine were an after thought.  My only critique of his work was his little apple and that he only used a few layers to get all his color on at once , though this is what makes the color pop in the photo.  He also did his without sketching first - impressive on its own!