Jola Sopek specialises in food and botanical art, and works with vibrant, natural colour palettes
 ** Colours in the Etchr palette with colour index and equivalents:Pure White PW6; Lemon Yellow PY3; Just Yellow PY35 (Cadmium Yellow); Mighty Ochre PY42 (Ochre); Llama Orange PY150 (Nickel Azo Yellow); Soft Orange PO20 (Cadmium Orange); Simply Red PR108 (Cadmium Red); Rogue Red PR177 (Alizarin Crimson); Sweet Red PR123 (Perylene Red); Pretty Pink PV19 (Quinacridone Magenta); Royal Purple PV23 (Dioxazine Violet); Lime Green PG36 + PY74 (Phthalo Green + Hansa Yellow); Leaf Green PG17 (Chromium Oxide Green); Emerald Green PG7 (Phthalo Green Blue Shade); Ocean Turquoise PY101 + PB17 (Yellow + Cyan); Ultramarine Blue PB29; Prussian Blue PB27; Sky Blue PB15.3 (Phthalo Blue); Cobalt Blue PB28; Umber Brown PR101 + PBr7 (Indian Red + Burnt Sienna); Brick Brown PR101 (Red Oxide); Burnt Sienna PBr7; Dark Brown PBr7 + PBk7 (Burnt Sienna + Carbon Black); Power Black (Carbon Black). |
Arrange your objects, then make a pencil sketch of the still life composition, filling the entire page. Ensure that your pencil sketch is as light as possible – avoid pressing too hard with the pencil onto the watercolour paper, which is a delicate surface. Watercolours are a transparent medium, so pencil lines tend to show underneath the paint if the sketch is too hard.
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Prepare the size 2 mop brush; we will be using it all the way up until the very last step, when we will switch to the flat angular brush for the final strokes. Pre-mix the colours you will be using on a mixing palette; this will save time when you are in the middle of painting! Start with a mix of Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Orange and a tiny bit of Cadmium Red to paint all the orange fruit skins. Vary the ratio of pigment to water, so that some parts of the skin are a deeper orange, and others are a paler, more transparent value. Clean the brush.
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Here we are working with Cadmium Red, Rogue Red, Orange, Magenta and Purple; switching quickly from one to another to
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