How to Sketch Fruit
- 1). Place several pieces of fruit on a surface, arranging them to make an interesting composition. Place some pieces upright and some on their sides. Use fruits with varying shapes, such as apples, pears and bananas.
- 2). Use a viewfinder to help you design the composition. Look through the opening of a photo frame or use a purchased viewfinder. What you see through the viewfinder is what you will draw on your paper. You can choose to zoom in on the fruit or capture the entire setting centered in your composition. Look through the viewfinder, moving it around until you have your desired composition.
- 3). Set up a spotlight to shine on the fruit. Focus the spotlight on the fruit from one direction to create a strong contrast of light and shadows. The stronger the contrast of light, the more depth and dimension you will achieve in your sketch.
- 4). Study the positive and negative space of the fruit. The positive space is the fruit form itself. The negative space is the space around the outside of the fruit. Studying both positive and negative spaces when sketching will help you see the shapes of the objects from two different perspectives.
- 5). Sketch an outline of the fruit in a sketchbook with a drawing pencil. Use your viewfinder when necessary to focus on the area contained in your composition. Draw quickly, keeping your eyes on the fruit and occasionally glancing at the paper to sketch.
- 6). Sketch the details of the fruit. Quickly draw details such as stems of apples and the navels of oranges.
- 7). Study the light hitting the fruit. Squint your eyes if necessary, so you only see the light and shadows, rather than the object. Quickly draw an outline of the dark shadowed areas to define the area. The shading will define the form of the fruit in your sketch.
- 8). Shade the dark shadowed areas using a cross-hatching technique. Draw overlapping lines in a criss-cross pattern. The more lines you draw, the darker the area will become. Shade quickly to fill in the shadows.
- 9). Shade the highlighted areas using the cross-hatching technique. Start at the dark shadowed areas, adding less overlapping lines to become lighter until you reach highlighted areas. For the lightest areas, leave the paper white.