How to Draw Fruit & Nuts

Bananas can play a key role in still-life painting.

Drawing objects in still life is one of the traditional disciplines of art. It requires that the artist not only create a technically good representation of the object, but also use his powers of composition to select the best arrangement of the objects to draw. An effective study of still life examines the shapes, forms and lines of the subject. In the case of fruit and nuts, which are generally, rough spheres, other fruits are required to add another dimension to the drawing of a group of spherical objects. This purpose is achieved with bananas, whose long, curving lines, draw the eye of the viewer and provide a different form.

Things You'll Need

• 3 Bananas
• 2 Peaches
• 2 Oranges
• 2 Apples
• 6 Walnuts
• Bowl
• Pencil
• Paper
• Desk lamp

Instructions

1. Draw a large horizontal oval in light pencil. This is the lip of the bowl. and it gives you a reference for the general area of where your fruit and nuts will be. Draw another, smaller, horizontal oval a few inches below this one, then draw a semi-circle starting from one end of the large oval, bisecting the smaller oval and ending at the other end of the large oval. This is the outline of your bowl, the dimensions depend on how big you want your drawing to be.

2. Arrange your bowl of fruit into position in which you want to draw it. Still life is all about the lines and shapes created by the subject, so take some time to sort the fruit into a desirable arrangement.

3. Draw the curving lines of the bananas first, building up their basic shape. Then draw rough circles for the other pieces of fruit. Draw smaller, ovular, shapes to represent the nuts. The key at this stage is to provide reference points for the basic shapes of the fruit and nuts, no further detail is required.

4. Go over the pencil lines of the bowl, pressing harder this time, avoiding any parts of the bowl that are rendered invisible by the fruit or nuts. Now that you know where the fruit is going to be you can build up a more permanent shape for the bowl. Do the same with the outlines of fruit, making sure not only to go over lines that remain visible. This builds up the impression of the fruit bowl as a three-dimensional entity.

5. Use the eraser to erase the faint pencil lines that make the fruit and nuts appear transparent. Be careful not to erase any of the permanent lines of the drawing.

6. Draw the detail of the fruit and nuts. The oranges will be pitted with tiny indentations, so use the end of the pencil to dot the fruit all over to give the effect of this. Peaches are covered with tiny hairs which can be represented with small downward strokes of the pencil all over the body of the peach. Walnut husks are covered with gnarled ridges and indentations. Represent these with harsh, jagged lines that run vertically from top to bottom of the walnut, then shade either side of these lines to give the impression of deep cracks. The shininess of apple skin is best represented by a small patch of white in the direction the light is coming from, to give the impression that the surface is reflecting the light.

7. Shine a light on the bowl of fruit and nuts. from the same direction mentioned in Step 6 to cast shadows. Use the flat side of the pencil to sketch these shadows, realizing the three-dimensional properties of the fruit bowl.

References

• Drawing Now: How to Draw a Bowl of Fruit
• Uncyclopedia: Peach JPG
• Doug Watson Digital: Walnut Study