Colourful Beefsteak Tomato

Colourful Beefsteak Tomato

From Memory

Pastel on paper

I was inspired again by Charlotte Herczfeld's wonderful video demo "Pastel Brands Matter" on YouTube. She used a 12 color set of Cretacolor Pastels Carre' and a dozen Unisons and Giraults to match the colors testing hard and soft pastels on three different types of paper. I've been fascinated by that demo ever since she posted it. 

Today, I followed some of her color choices and drew a beefsteak tomato from memory. My grandmother used to grow them, wide bulbous tomatoes almost like peppers for having an asymmetrical shape, rich and red and tasty. I used the other half of the orange Mi-Tientes sheet I did Sunset II on and started with Cretacolor Pastels Carre' for the first two layers. The background upper area is still just Cretacolor, the rest has Unisons as additional layers to put on more color and softer, broader strokes. At the very end I used a pale Terry Ludwig cream to do the "White" highlights that give it shine. 

I love how this simple study looks. That's half of why I did one - I loved her tomatoes and wanted something like that on my wall! Love the colors!