I am a food illustrator and have illustrated a lot of fruit. For this post I am sharing cherries. Cherries had challenges with the long and thin stems, which needed to be delicate and smooth. The dimension of a cherry was created with a bottom shadow and simple highlight.
It was important that the highlight wasn’t too perfect or the cherry would look like plastic. The cherries I illustrated were either bright red or a dark magenta to indicate “black cherry” flavor. Cherry leaves were interesting to paint because they had very serrated edges.
For fun, I share a large fruit illustration that includes cherries. It was large because it would wrap around a jar for a jam label. The art director requested that my painting be done in a certain style. I had to follow a certain color and texture for the leaves. And, I was told to have harsh shadows. Normally, I use reflected light on the edges of fruit and never let the shadow reach the edge. The effect was definitely interesting for me!
My cherry illustrations were used on labels for yogurt, juice, jam and liqueur. There is one painting that was very unusual because it was for train car rentals.
I never liked painting clear liquid, but this painting was my best effort that I was pleased with. 
Some of these paintings were rendered with markers and colored pencils and others were created with watercolor dyes. All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:
http://foodartist.wordpress.com
© 2014 by Judy Unger, http://www.myjourneysinsight.com and 20 Lines A Day. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: art, Art Instruction, Art Teaching, artist, cherries, cherry, cherry illustrations, cherry juice, cherry painting, cherry stem, colored pencil, Commercial Art, creativity, digital art, Dr. Martin Dyes, drawing, droplets, food art, food artist, food illustration, food label illustrator, food painter, Food paintings, fruit, Fruit Illustration, fruit painter, fruit paintings, Illustrate, illustration, illustrator, Judy Unger, label illustrations, line drawing, Luma Dyes, marker illustration, Marker Technique, markers, moisture, packaging illustrations, packaging illustrator, Painting, photo-realism, photo-realistic, photorealism, photorealistic, Prismacolor pencils, Realism, watercolor, watercolors
