Ooooh, Zara, such gorgeous darks! Is it a mix of dark indigo and red-violet? It’s such a nice rich color. Beautiful smooth toning on this plum, and I love the highlights. I think you can add a little more shadow color to your reflected highlight. Keep in mind that reflected light is never as intense as direct light, so that little bit of reflected light on the lower right should be darker than highlight and midtones that are on the left side of your plum (which are receiving direct light from your light source). Does that make sense? I think you are doing a nice job with that cast shadow. I would maybe just dab a kneaded eraser along the outside edge of that shadow, and then lightly try to feather that toning out so that it just fades away into the white of the paper. You want to try to avoid a defined edge on your cast shadow so that your beautiful plum can be the obvious star of the show. This plum has a beautiful glow to it, and the skin has that nice waxy feel to it. Very nice job!
@pgthompson thanks so much for taking the time to give me such great feedback! The colours are a mix of dark indigo, red-violet and madder at the bottom (also dark sepia), it took quite a lot of layers to get the right colour of the plum. I did think the reflective highlight was too light but was unsure, and I thought I can always add more later on! It is my first cast shadow and I went a bit heavy with the watercolour but I will try to soften the edge more. Thanks for your encouragement ☺️
I really enjoyed drawing this – the dark colours were quite challenging to get right, especially with the toning.
Ooooh, Zara, such gorgeous darks! Is it a mix of dark indigo and red-violet? It’s such a nice rich color. Beautiful smooth toning on this plum, and I love the highlights. I think you can add a little more shadow color to your reflected highlight. Keep in mind that reflected light is never as intense as direct light, so that little bit of reflected light on the lower right should be darker than highlight and midtones that are on the left side of your plum (which are receiving direct light from your light source). Does that make sense? I think you are doing a nice job with that cast shadow. I would maybe just dab a kneaded eraser along the outside edge of that shadow, and then lightly try to feather that toning out so that it just fades away into the white of the paper. You want to try to avoid a defined edge on your cast shadow so that your beautiful plum can be the obvious star of the show. This plum has a beautiful glow to it, and the skin has that nice waxy feel to it. Very nice job!
@pgthompson thanks so much for taking the time to give me such great feedback! The colours are a mix of dark indigo, red-violet and madder at the bottom (also dark sepia), it took quite a lot of layers to get the right colour of the plum. I did think the reflective highlight was too light but was unsure, and I thought I can always add more later on! It is my first cast shadow and I went a bit heavy with the watercolour but I will try to soften the edge more. Thanks for your encouragement ☺️