Pastel/Color Pencil Project

This picture was taken at a French restaurant around 3 years ago with my mom's Nikon. She had her camera with her at the time and I realized how beautiful my entree was with the rose red dried tomatoes and shamrock green vegetables which were scattered across the dish. And to top it off with a simple white background. For this art project, I decided on using pastel as my coloring medium. The oil pastel isn't as detailed as colored pencils; however, pastels are used best to highlight the vibrant colors. Because I've never used an open composition before, I decided to do exactly that on this project.

I have used gridding before and have always considered it a useful technique for bigger paintings or paintings that may take up a large area of the paper. It helps to break down the painting into small portions. The most challenging thing to draw in the project was darker areas where the outline of objects weren't visible.

My color scheme was mainly a complementary color scheme with the red tomatoes and green vegetables. You could also say I used an analogous color scheme with the multiple shades of brown, but brown is not part of the color wheel. The light grey background shows it's either taken in the day time or taken with very bright lighting. Also, the highlights around the food show the glare of light from behind and around the dish.

I filled my composition with as much color as possible without using unrealistic colors or colors that wouldn't fit in. The most noticeable areas of colors being layered are in the meat, tomatoes, vegetables, and shading. The principle of texture is seen throughout the painting from all the objects of the dish. By leaving the shavings of the pastels, it creates a surface with feeling. Movement can be seen by how the oil pastels flow around each object.
I'm happy with the turnout of the project because this was the first time I've ever used this medium at its best. I'd probably just add more shading and highlights in the fig and add more detail.