Three Tomatoes - Stage Nine

G A Austin

Allow all paint from previous stage to completely dry. Now for the plate. In this photograph I filled in the plate before the vines, it doesn't really matter which you do first, but painting in the plate last not only tides up any mistakes but also any mishapen tomatoes. The plate will hide all those fluffy looking tomato edges!
The plate is filled in by various shades of Paynes grey and Titanium white mixed together. If you do not have Paynes Grey handy in your paintbox just mix a small amount of Ultramarine Blue and Titanium white into Mars black. Create a charcoal grey (dark grey) colour on your palette, mixing a very small amount of titanium white into your Paynes Grey. This will be used for a very deep shadow beneath your tomatoes. With your watercolour fine detail brush, which you used for your vines, paint in your shadow lines which go where the tomatoes touch the plate, this tidies up the bottom of your tomatoes.
As you progress painting in your blocks of shadow colour, you have to break each area down into tones. Starting with very dark shadow tones out to mid tones to highlights. Each tone will have more Titanium white added to your grey mix on your palette. This is a very tricky stage, but don't panic! Think methodically and plan out your tone stages and you shouldn't go wrong. Remember mistakes can be repainted over very easily. Just make sure if you do repaint an area, make sure the previous layer of paint is completely dry.
Shadow areas from the scalloped sides of the plate can be created with drybrush using the hog brush. Leave this until last with left over greys - gentle strokes.
If you're not confident in doing the scalloped edges, just leave.

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