Orange still life

This is a still life I did as part of the ATC Exchange at Wetcanvas. This picture is based on a beautiful photo by Henz Fotojam in Flickr. I had asked his permission to paint the photo, to which he graciously agreed. I initially wanted to try an oil painting of this one on a black surface, but ended up doing a colored pencil drawing on white stonehenge paper.

Still life with Oranges
pvt collection of Ardith
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

I was mainly attracted to this reference because of the beautiful flowing fabric that was so rich in color. I absolutely suck at doing fabric, and wanted to give it a go. I am sure I did not succeed fully, but was happy for a first step.

Also, I tried a complementary underpainting with this one, where I did the first layer in red and crimson for the fabric and mild blues for the oranges. Then went over them with the actual colors. As I had mentioned already, the ATC project gave a chance to try a lot of new things, since it was very less consuming thanks to the miniature size.