How to Paint Tomato Plants by Using Oil Colours

Finding Artistic Inspiration from Painting Vegetables in the Garden

Aug 26, 2009

An unusual setting for a painting often yields interesting results. The greenhouse offers interplay between reflections and patterns of light onto the plants within.

Setting up a mobile studio inside a greenhouse is a great way of challenging the artist who usually sits indoors in front of a still life study. The greenhouse (on a mild day) offers a comfortable and inspiring location within the garden where bright sunlight filters onto living plants within.

Fruit and Vegetables in the Greenhouse

Painting fruit and vegetables before they are picked has two advantages. Firstly, they stay fresh for weeks. Secondly, the artist may select whichever stage of the ripening process they like. In this demonstration, the tomatoes within the greenhouse are at various stages of ripening. Some are red, some green and some orange. This offers interesting contrasts in colours and focal points throughout the painting.

Sketching the Tomatoes

The drawing had been sketched out on a cloudy day, when the linear aspect of the view was not confused by light and shade. The drawing was then carefully transferred onto the painting surface and overlaid with neat blue acrylic paint. In order to rid the offputting and blindingly white surface of the canvasboard, an imprimatura consisting of diluted crimson acrylic had been applied onto the painting surface.

Art Materials Required

Embarking on the Painting

The backdrop to the tomato plants were painted first. This consisted of the sky and the green background. The sky was ladled on with a mixture of pthalo blue and white. Allowing some of the crimson under-paint to poke through adds movement and expression to the blue brush marks (fig 1).

Making Greens Appear to Advance

Various mixtures of greens were applied onto the setting. Firstly, pale greens suggesting the trees in the distance. This was applied via a mixture of viridian, ultramarine and white. Next, more viridian was added with a little lemon yellow to make the colours appear advance for the nearby doorframe in front (fig 2).

The Foliage in Oil Colours

The tomato plants were blocked in via two areas of colours: the sunlit areas and the shadow. Two sables were used simultaneously for speed, as the sunlight was constantly shifting. The sunlit leaves were pasted on with lemon yellow, viridian and white; the dark greens consisted of a varying mixture of viridian, ultramarine, permanent rose and burnt umber. Half closing the eyes simplifies the scene. Periodically standing back from the painting serves to get some distance from the profusion of greens and to see the setting as a whole (fig 3).

Demonstration on Painting Tomato Fruit

Once the pots and the floor had been blocked in, the painting was completed by painting the tomato fruit. With a thin sable, lemon yellow and white were dabbed onto the sunlit areas of unripe fruit, darkened with ultramarine and permanent rose; the ripe fruit consisted of cadmium red darkened with a little permanent rose. Pure white was dabbed onto the highlights of each fruit (fig 4).

How to Paint Tomato Plants

Using an unusual setting for a painting often results in an interesting composition. The greenhouse is an ideal setting, where living fruit, such as tomato plants can be captured. The red fruit offers interesting focal points against a green backdrop. Further, reflections and patterned sunlight offers added dimension to the subject matter.

The copyright of the article How to Paint Tomato Plants by Using Oil Colours in Landscape Painting is owned by Rachel Wills. Permission to republish How to Paint Tomato Plants by Using Oil Colours in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.