Hi Paige, first of all, this is a lovely, sensitive drawing, so don’t beat yourself up! One of the issues is that you aren’t integrating the “bumps” into the surface of the strawberry. I’m certain the under surface is not that smooth. It will be affected by the emergence of the seeds. Also, I think the seeds are too small. From the photos I see of wild strawberries. It seems they are a bit larger. You could then include more information about each seed. For example, the highlights and shadow, the cast shadow on the surface of the berry.
10 June 2021
Posting Paige’s original comment here, since it was originally posted as the Image Title: “Hi friends. I’m attempting to draw the false strawberries growing wild in my yard. This is a three inch drawing of a fruit that is actually only one centimeter, maybe two? I’ve never tried to enlarge anything ans I feel like I’m failing miserably at this one… it looks like there are tiny spheres on the larger sphere. When the “tiny spheres” are really supposed to be tiny outgrowths from the larger. I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t know how to draw this is and I don’t know where to go from here.”
10 June 2021
Paige, you’ve done an excellent job with this–the enlargement, the details, the smooth toning. And I think what Katy said is spot on. There is a thing that happens with the surface of a strawberry where when it encounters one of the seeds, the surface undulates and is not smooth. You can show us that by just adding some subtle lights and darks to this drawing in places where the surface would sort of indent each time there is a seed. If you light your berry really well and use a strong magnifier, you should be able to see some of the places where you might add a little blip of a highlight or shadow here and there, and I bet that would do the trick. 🙂 Really great work and attention to detail here.
Hi Paige, first of all, this is a lovely, sensitive drawing, so don’t beat yourself up! One of the issues is that you aren’t integrating the “bumps” into the surface of the strawberry. I’m certain the under surface is not that smooth. It will be affected by the emergence of the seeds. Also, I think the seeds are too small. From the photos I see of wild strawberries. It seems they are a bit larger. You could then include more information about each seed. For example, the highlights and shadow, the cast shadow on the surface of the berry.
Posting Paige’s original comment here, since it was originally posted as the Image Title: “Hi friends. I’m attempting to draw the false strawberries growing wild in my yard. This is a three inch drawing of a fruit that is actually only one centimeter, maybe two? I’ve never tried to enlarge anything ans I feel like I’m failing miserably at this one… it looks like there are tiny spheres on the larger sphere. When the “tiny spheres” are really supposed to be tiny outgrowths from the larger. I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t know how to draw this is and I don’t know where to go from here.”
Paige, you’ve done an excellent job with this–the enlargement, the details, the smooth toning. And I think what Katy said is spot on. There is a thing that happens with the surface of a strawberry where when it encounters one of the seeds, the surface undulates and is not smooth. You can show us that by just adding some subtle lights and darks to this drawing in places where the surface would sort of indent each time there is a seed. If you light your berry really well and use a strong magnifier, you should be able to see some of the places where you might add a little blip of a highlight or shadow here and there, and I bet that would do the trick. 🙂 Really great work and attention to detail here.
@katylyness @vern thank you for your kind thoughtful comments.