Still Life

I decided yesterday that today I would paint a "real" painting, that is, using actual watercolor paper instead of working in my sketchbook, and with a subject from life. As it happens, I was at the market while having these thoughts, so I picked up a few pieces of fruit that only show themselves around December so I could arrange a still life. I had just been watching Brenda Swenson's contour drawing lesson on YouTube, which featured a few persimmons, and I have always liked her negative paintings of pomegranates as well, so I combined those and added in a lovely pale yellow pear.

I did this as a mostly continuous line drawing while on the fruit; but once I started doing the leaf pattern on the plate, things got tricky, and I ended up lifting my pen quite a bit. Still, the overall drawing has the wonky feeling of continuous contour.

Today I decided to break out the "good" paints as well; I used my designer collection of Paul Jackson paints made by DaVinci. The features I like best about them are their creaminess and intensity of color; and some of them granulate really beautifully as well. I've noticed that they do take a little longer to dry than those in my other paint palette, which is weird, because more than half of those are M. Graham, which have honey in their ingredients list and therefore should stay damp longer. I'll have to ask Paul about that.

Black uniball pen on 140 lb. Fluid watercolor paper, Jackson watercolors, Escoda paintbrushes.