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30 Days of Fruit Illustration - Part Two

Some of the links used in this post are affiliate links, for more information on what that means, click here.

I'm back with the second installment of the illustrations I've created for the 30 days of art "fruit" themed challenge by Sealemon. Here is my Part One post which shows days 1-10 in case you missed it. In terms of how Im doing with the challenge now, 20 days in, it's interesting (well, to me, it might not be for you, but humor me for a minute). I thought I would feel really overwhelmed with the commitment of having to draw something every day, something I might not want to draw (I suffer from an anxiety disorder, specifically linked to cleithrophobia - which is a fear of being trapped), but actually, I'm dealing fine with this, I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the challenge at all - even by the posting on Instagram part which is something I normally suck at. What I am starting to experience though, is a bit of fruit fatigue - especially as I see several melons on the horizon - I'm starting to feel like I'm being repetitive in what I'm producing, and maybe part of these challenges is breaking through that feeling, but right now, I sort of feel a bit "done" with fruit - not with the idea of producing everyday, but yeah, not fruit. Nevertheless, I will finish this challenge, but going forward, I think I would maybe look for a more varied prompt list to work from, just for me personally.

Day 11 - Lime 

line drawn lime slices on bright green

For lime, I wanted to do something distinctly different from what I did with lemon - which was a palette knife acrylic painting - and since the response to my continuous line strawberry drawings had been good, I decided to go that route again and make some lime slices.  So the slice was drawn on paper with a Sharpie Marker and then scanned into Photoshop to be made into this simple repeating pattern.

I liked the colour combination because it felt really fresh and Summer-y, and so I actually made a few other citrus inspired variants and uploaded them to my Redbubble and Society6 stores.

flat lay floor pillow with white and green lime slice pattern


Day 12 Cherries

acrlyic painted cherry print

I struggled to pick a style with cherries - I feel like there's so many ways to interpret them! In the end I painted them in acrylic, and I wanted to create quite a rich, deep palette, and then to pair that with a kinda unexpected, more modern background. Did it work? I have no idea. Did I have fun making this one? Yes

While I do really, really want to make acrylic painted Digital Paper Packs, I still haven't yet, so at the moment, this design is just available in my Redbubble and Society6 stores on a wide range of products, and on a few different background colours.

acrylic painted cherry theme phone case

Day 13 - Pears

hand painted ink pears in a repeating pattern

Pears are quite possibly, no, quite probably my least favourite fruit (except for pear flavoured Fruitella sweets, does anyone remember those? Those were heaven). So I wasn't really sure how I wanted to draw one, having never really looked much at them! In the end I brought out my inks (which I have almost no idea how to use) and thought I'd give it a shot. Honestly, I actually kind of love how this came out! I went in without any plan, but I like where I ended up!

Unfortunately, I accidentally closed the design in Photoshop without having saved any stage of it (I know, such a rookie mistake), and I haven't actually yet gone back in to re-create it to upload it anywhere, but I think I will!

Day 14 - Grapes

hand painted grapes surface pattern

So, mixed results on this one, I feel. I wanted to paint them in acrylic, but I really wanted to try and capture the finish that red grapes have on their skin - that almost white, or matte vibe to them. I think that challenge might have been a step to far for my skillset, as I do feel these kinda just came out looking chalky. For creating the pattern, I wanted to try and do something a bit different and take advantage of the fact that grapes work on stalks, as well as as individual grapes. I feel like I ended up with more alien trees than fruit, but that could be kind of cool I guess! I haven't developed this idea any further, but that's not to say I won't in the future.

Day 15 - Peaches 

expressive line drawing of peaches on bright ombre background

Typical me, I spent ages looking forward to drawing peaches, with their super cute bum shapes and delicious colour palette, only to promptle produce a line-only drawing showing them in a non bum-shaped way?! Oh well, best laid plans and all that. So yes, these were line drawn with Sharpie Marker and scanned in to be coloured digitally and made into a pattern. I had this idea of this almost neon gradient and thought, why not, but I'm still not sure about it. It does definitely scream SUMMER though!

I uploaded this design, on the bright gradient, as well as on several more muted colours to my Redbubble and Society6 stores.

white line drawn peaches on dusty pink

Day 16 - Mango

mango drawn with oil pastels

I very much had it in my head that I wanted to draw my mango with oil pastels, I wanted to get the intensity of the fruit, the colours mashing into one another. In retrospect, I think I forgot that I hadn't used oil pastels in years, so my skill wasn't where I thought it was and I wasn't really able to get the full effect of what I was going for. Still, I had a lot of fun and I will definitely keep playing with oil pastels. I haven't developed this idea any further.

Day 17 - Grapefruit

pink grapefruit pattern tote bag

This was by far the day I came closest to skipping so far in this challenge. I've been having some hand pain - which I think it just me injuring it slightly through a combination of repetitive strain and general tension - but on this particular day I really couldn't hold a pen or a paint brush for any length of time. I sat down to do a detailed, ballpoint pen drawing and after about 10 minutes I had to pack it in. There may or may not have been a few tears of frustration. So, I fell back onto a quick sketch and to make up for the lack of drawing involved, I took time to put my quickie pattern onto this mockup from Creatsy.

Day 18 - Papaya

papaya fruit painted with acrylic paint

My hand was feeling a bit better on this day, but I still didn't want to push it and try and hold something for too long, so I decided to do a quick, kind of expressive acrylic painting. To be honest, although I know I've eaten papaya I've never held one or cut into one, so it was kind of fun and strange to be painting one. I actually completed the painting early in the day, but then completely forgot to photograph it until the evening - and the light then sort of washed out the painting a bit, but still, it's a papaya.

Day 19 - Avocado

line drawn avocado surface pattern in pink and green

 Looking back on this day, I can clearly see my fruit fatigue setting in! Does it meet the brief? Sure. Did I enjoy making it? Nope. I honestly, just wasn't feeling this one at all, which is weird because avocados are a favourite of mine and I was really into doing some sort of pink and green theme, but nope. Not feeling it. I'm struggling to even write about it now because I'm so meh about the whole thing - needless to say, I haven't developed this idea any further!

Day 20 - Pomegranate

pomegranate fruit painted with watercolors

Feeling a bit more like myself with this one. I know that pomegranates are all about the stunning interior, but I just wasn't feeling that detail yet (hand problems) and so I decided to - for only the second time in this challenge - crack out the watercolors. Oveall, I'm actually pretty happy with how this one came out - watercolours are way out of my comfort zone but I feel like I did an okay job with this one to be honest. I think the little seeds are a nice touch - although my partner, Kenny, thought they were axolotls at first, so, mixed respons there.

I am going to be making this into a pattern and uploading it onto Print on Demand, but I'm writing this on the morning of the 21st and so I just haven't had the chance yet.

Conclusion 

While I'm still really glad I started on this challenge, I think I am enjoying it less as time goes on - and maybe thats to be expected? Maybe I'll catch a second wind and get really into it again? Who knows. I actually think if I was going to do a challenge like this again, I would do it all in one medium - so acrylic paint probably. I think then at the end it would be fun to see a cohesive sort of "collection" of all the fruits, rather than the sort of mishmash of styles I have floating about just now.

30 Days of Fruit Illustrations - Part One

 Some of the links used in this post are affiliate links, for more information on what that means, click here.

Hello all,
At the beginning of May I decided to follow along with the 30 Days of Art "Fruit" Themed Challenge, which was created by SeaLemon - you can find her on Instagram and YouTube.
I'm normally super apprehensive about starting a challenge like this - in TikTok language I'm the CEO of panicking and hiding halfway through a challenge. I certainly didn't plan on making any sort of commitment at the moment - as well experiencing these strange new times, I also lost a close loved one in the last week of April, and I'm very much on a rollercoaster of emotions at the moment. And yet, here we are, with the first 10 days under my belt and lots of enthusiasm for more designs going forward - how strange?!

I've been posting the designs daily on my Instagram - on my TimorousEclectic account - but I wanted to do a little round up here, for people who don't use Instagram, and also so I could share a bit more about the decisions behind the making, and how I went on to develop the illustration (if at all).

Day 1 - Watermelon

Hand drawn watermelon shapes on navy blue background

For Day One I, all of a sudden  - as in after a gap of about 10 years - decided I wanted to play with china markers again. Random. I wanted to have a bold, but textured line and I thought this would be a fun way to go. I do like the effect, but I want to definitely expand on it - ideally I'd like the line to be about twice as thick! I also played around with making some of my own brushes for Photoshop, by scanning in watercolor paint marks, and then colouring these digitally in a watercolour style. Again, I like the effect but would like to crank it up a notch.

 I drew the watermelon elements individually, and turned them into a Clipart and Digital Paper Pack on my Digital Etsy Shop, and I also expanded on this type of surface design and uploaded some variations to my Society6 and Redbubble stores - although I think this blue background is my favourite!

Day 2 - Blueberry

acrylic paint blueberry painted with a palette knife, against a white background.


Another day of sudden, nostalgic creative drive as I attempted palette knife painting for, again, the first time in about a decade. (As a side note, the fact that I have mad whims like this is the reason I end up hoarding all art supplies, forever.) Because the shape of a blueberry is so simple, I wanted to play with creating texture and "detail" within the basic shape. I feel like I did achieve what I set out to do, and I know things like my colour mixing and understanding of shade and light will come back to me and improve with practice.

I only painted this one, single blueberry but I turned it into a surface pattern and uploaded it to my Society6 and Redbubble stores on a range of backgrounds - I think it looks pretty cool with the really distinct texture and the bold colours!

Day 3 - Pineapple

Sketchbook page showing a ballpoint pen drawing of a pineapple

This was one of the days I struggled with! There are so many options with a pineapple and so many styles that I wanted to try out - colours, lines, shapes, textures - that I just sort of froze for the majority of the day. In the end, I really wanted to keep going with the challenge but I'd left it a little late in the day for getting the paints out, so I decided to go back to my old faithful: ballpoint pen drawings. Definitely not my strongest drawing, but it actually ended up being kind of a fun interpretation when usually pineapples are so bold and colourful!

I didn't scan in or develop this days illustration any further - you beat me this time pineapples, but I will return!

Day 4 - Lemon

Lemon painted with acrylic paint and a palette knife of a white background


Back at it with the palette knife again! I just couldn't resist having another shot at trying to create some movement and life on what is usually quite a flat, even surface. I did have to make myself promise not to do this with every other round/citrus fruit on the list though!

 I feel like the painting of the actual fruit is a step forward with this one, but I really, really don't like that streak of white on the leaves. Shudder. I scanned this - and the other lemon I painted - in to Photoshop (tried to dull that white a bit) and then uploaded the pattern to my Redbubble and Society6 stores - again I really like how it looks with the very textured fruit against the solid, saturated background.

Day 5 - Banana

three rolls of fabric featuring banana prints, standing against a wall.

For this day, I went a little fancy with my post and shared a few of my banana patterns on this fabric mockup (which is from Creatsy). These are digitally drawn and coloured in, pretty simple banana shapes that are quite striking in their own way. They are for sale in my Etsy shop as a Digital Paper Pack, and I liked a couple of the patterns so much that they're up on my Redbubble store - because, seriously, who isn't in the marked for a bright yellow, banana covered shower curtain?

Day 6 - Strawberry

repeating pattern of white, line drawn strawberries on a pink background

Cracked out the Sharpie Marker (nothing like the smell of an alcohol based marker pen at 8 in the morning, yikes) for this one today and drew some, not quite continuous line, but I guess expressive line shapes? I drew probably around 6-8 strawberries, quickly and instinctively and at the end I felt one was a lot stronger than the others so voila, scanned it in and made it into this seamless, repeating pattern. 

I wanted colours that felt true to the strawberry, but also matched the more modern, simple feel of the drawing and I feel I nailed that. I would really like to explore making a Digital Paper Pack with this kind of drawing - but for now, I uploaded this colouring and a more rose gold palette to both my Society6 and Redbubble stores.

Day 7 - Orange

Graphic pattern featuring orange segments and slices, drawn digitally.

I'll be honest, I think this illustration has gotten by far the least love on my Instagram of all the fruits so far, but it's easily in my personal top 3?! I really wanted a simple graphic feel, not too detailed, and with lots of contrast - and I feel like I did that. I drew and coloured these elements indiviually in Photoshop, so that I could combine them to make this design, but also turn them into a Clipart Set and Digital Paper Pack for my Etsy Store. 

Given the lack of response to these designs so far, I haven't made any patterns to put up on Print or Demand, but down the road I might come back to it if I have a bit of free time of an afternoon or something.

Day 8 - Apple

Sketchbook page showing sketches of apples in red pencil

The closes I came to just missing a day altogether - I was just not feeling this. Again, it's not so much that I couldn't get inspired, but as with the pineapple, it's more like I was overwhelmed with ideas and just couldn't settle to anything, so I basically did nothing. 

In the end, the best I could do was these pencil sketches in my Moleskine sketchbook, a little page of "studies", or really more like doodles. On one hand, I'm proud of myself for playing with a different medium (for this challenge) and still making something, but on the other hand, I don't feel this is my best work and I don't love that it's on my grid.

I didn't develop this idea any further, but I did jot down a bunch of the other apple ideas I had and hopefully I'll circle back around to them.

Day 9 - Kiwi

watercolor and mixed media kiwi fruit slices on a pale pink background.

Day 9 started innocently enough with me deciding to crack out my watercolours and have a little go at painting a kiwi slice, only to spend a frustrating hour remembering that I am in fact very bad at watercolours. Rather than scrap what I'd painted and start again with something I'm more comfortable with, I decided to bring in some felt tip pens and fineliners and see if there was a way to resuce the kiwi a bit. I mean, it helped a bit I guess.

Once finished it was scanned and made into a simple repeating pattern in Photoshop, and while I have no plans to upload this to any Print on Demand sites,or do anything further with it at all one thing I do really like is the colour scheme, so I'm calling that a win at least.

Day 10 - Dragonfruit

Dragonfruit illustration painted with acrylic paints and photographed against a white wall.

As soon as I saw what this day was I knew I wanted to crack out the acrylic paint - this was such an insanely fun palette to paint with! I wanted to go for a more layered, translucent wash style than I usually do to try and capture the way these beautiful hues merge into one another and while this is far from perfect, I think it's a pretty nice little study and has a lot of strengths going for it. Plus, did I mention how fun it was to paint?

While the colours definitely make me want to produce a dragonfruit Digital Paper Pack in the future (frankly whether anyone else would want it or not!), for now this dragonfruit was made into a repeating pattern and uploaded to my Redbubble and Society6 stores - on quite a few background colours actually, I just couldn't choose!

Conclusion

I'm enjoying this project so much more than I've ever enjoyed another challenge like this, but I can't quite put my finger on why? Of course, I still have a long way to go, but I'm excited to see what media I decide to play with and to see people react to my little doodles and scribbles on Instagram. I will of course share the rest of the project in two more, 10 day incremement posts, but in the meantine, I'd love to hear of any other art challeneges you enjoy or would recommend? I think I've caught the bug!