Oranges

Step 1

Cut your orange into parts and eat half of it. Now you can start composing your still life by arranging the half-eaten orange on a plate.

Use the Van Gogh water colour pencil in the colour Gold Ochre 231 to sketch the outlines of your orange parts. We used water colour pencils because the lines either disappear or cooperate with the wet paint.

You don’t have to be too precise with this sketch, focus on the colours and shapes.

Step 2

To create that juicy yellow undertone, start with a considerably diluted Deep Yellow 202 of Talens gouache paint. You can dilute the paint with water. This makes the paint more transparent, making it appear deeper in tone and ‘juicier’. This first layer may get a little sloppy, but remember that nature isn’t exact either.

Step 3

Gouache dries quite quickly and is water soluble, so it is easy to work in layers. Apply stronger coloured areas using a less diluted layer of the gouache in the same colour.

Step 4

Use the colours White 100 and Yellow 200 to create the yellow parts of the orange peel around the flesh. Since gouache paint is quite opaque, it gives your coloured area a nice, velvety appearance.

Step 5

Add more details. Darken the shadows of the orange peel using the previously used Deep Yellow with the colour Burnt Sienna 411. The contrast between the bright colours of the orange and the deeper colour Warm Grey 718 can provide some depth as well if you add it as a shadow to the plate.

Step 6

Accentuate the plate with shadows. Wet a part of your plate with a clean brush up to where you want your paint to go to indicate the shadows and ridges of the plate. Add paint to the wet surface and watch it spread by itself.

Add some contrast to the painting by creating a background. We used the Van Gogh water colour pencil in Emerald Green 614.

Step 7

Once the paint has dried, slightly blur the edges with a clean, wet brush. Let this dry as well and add some white to the rims of the plate and add some glossy details.

That completes your orange still life painting! We hope this tutorial inspires you to draw or paint something you can find around the house to get those creative juices flowing! Have fun and share your results using #RoyalTalens.

Don’t forget to finish the other half of your orange!