Painting fruit and veg

I have some resin plates, and crates with veggies I’d like to paint as part of a diorama. But where to start? I’m struggling to find tutorials, videos etc. Any thoughts? Thx.

I am sure other with more experience than me will provide better replies, but meanwhile I would paint them with the pertinent color, add a darker wash for shadows and then play with some oils to add different shades to each piece

1 Like

I would compare it to painting camouflage.
There is the single colour, no camo whatsoever:


Just shadowns/highlights and a few small details.

There are also camouflaged fruit/veg


or onions

or these

Difficult carrots

or easy carrots
image
(compare with the oranges)

there are even fancy carrots

There is always one that want to stand out from the crowd

Easy apple

tricky apples

Vive la difference!

Easy banana

Banana testing a little camouflage

Wrecked bananas

I’m not trying to be a


I just wanted to show that fruit and veg is a very wide specification with lots
of different variants.

I would start by taking a close look at the veg and fruit section of your supermarket
and make yourself a mental picture of what you want to achieve

5 Likes

Just don’t start painting fruit & veg in the supermarket, or they’ll chuck you out! :grin:

2 Likes

or take out the Pantone-fan and start comparing the colours …

1 Like

I suddenly feel like having a salad for lunch…

2 Likes

Again, Google Image is your friend. :eye:
:smiley: :canada:

Thanks for all the colour suggestions and I’m good with that. I’m thinking more in terms of how to paint these pieces as they are single resin pieces representing a tray of fruit at 1/35. I’m guessing I have to work outside in? I guess spray a base coat for the tray and then work on the veggies. Then treat as I might camo. Does that sound about right? Thx again.

Sounds right.
It depends on how You are used to working with paints and colours.
Fruit or a pile of handgrenades, rocks, helmets or something else
is simply a complex shape that needs to be given different shades
and hues of a base colour.
Look a fruit basket in the same way as you would look at a figure
when deciding hwo to use highlights and shadows.
Taking a photo could help the eye avoid seeing a pile of fruit
as a pile of individual fruit and see them as a surface with complicated
shades, highlights and base colour.
Some artist sometime somewhere (I have forgotten where, could have been YouTube)
explained that viewing a photo upside down tricks ther brain into seeing the image or
pattern instead of interpreting the image as a pile of objects.
“Everybody knows oranges are orange so a pile of oranges is simply a pile of
monochrome roundish orange blobs”. Not seeing the oranges helsp the brain
escape this trap.

2 Likes

Very helpful. Thx.