I don’t eat a lot of peaches, they taste delicious but the texture of their fuzzy skin gives me the shivers. However one of my favourite food memories I associate with peaches, was sitting on a summers day in my mother in laws’s beautiful garden, eating a sun warmed peeled peach with cream. It stayed in my memory as I was surpised that the fruit made the cream thicken as I hadn’t ever come across that before.
Another peachy memory is my mum’s ready made sponge flan case filled with smooth tinned peach halves covered with gelatine. We used to have it with evaporated milk poured straight from the tin and I liked the way it would glide over the domed peaches and settle around them.
Peaches and Cream watercolour painting, on the board in my studio surrounded by initial drawings and colour tests.
For this painting I decided to include the peach skin, as its colours and patterns contrasted with the smoother yellows of the peach flesh.
When creating a detailed drawing of a perishable subject I find it much easier to work from photos and I really enjoy setting up still life compositions. It’s a chance to play around with shapes, light and how the objects balance with each other. I’m also looking at the contrast of textures and shapes of the fruit below the rim of the glass bowl against the fruit above. They become a miniature world or landscape with less importance focused on the background.
I spent lot of time rearranging the slices for this composition until it felt right. Below is one of the arrangements that wasn’t working - too much yellow and some shapes were face on. The second image below was better as I liked the way the light shone down on the top peach slice and it contrasted with the deep reds and oranges of the skin on the slices under the rim.
After some rough sketches I decided it needed more cream and drizzled some over the top. I was a bit heavy handed and it pooled around the foot of the glass bowl - luckily it worked with the spacing of the peach stone and slice on the right hand side so I kept it in for the final drawing.
Initial composition test for Peaches and Cream painting.
Second composition idea for Peaches and Cream painting.
Initial rough sketches looking at composition.
Tonal study in pencil for Peaches and Cream
I find drawings that I create from photographs are very different from when I sit and observe a subject. For me it’s a completely different approach and way of creating marks - less expressive and more detailed. Whilst drawing feels a very natural way to create what I see, watercolour doesn’t come easy and I find that producing a tonal study helps when painting depth and texture in colour.
Most importantly the drawing stage gives me the main shapes to trace and then print using the blotted line technique. A very simple mono printing technique originally used by Andy Warhol in his illustrative work. It creates a distinct textured mark and I find it useful to define shape and form. I find being selective at this stage is important as the image can become too heavy or clumsy looking if you include too much. If needed more printed areas can be added at a later stage.
Below are photos showing the painting in progress.
Creating the outline using Andy Warhol’s blotted line technique.
First washes of yellow watercolour paint applied.
Gradually adding washes of watercolour paint using the wet on wet technique.
Adding darker washes of watercolour paint.
Peaches and Cream - original watercolour and ink painting by Lucy Clayton
Framed W 48 x H 54cm
Technically I found this a difficult painting due to the yellows and I kept making mistakes that couldn’t be rectified or accidentally splashing paint on areas that needed to stay white - think it was restarted five times. It’s frustrating when things go wrong and although I learn through mistakes I kept repeating them over and over again and started to believe I just couldn’t complete it.
The worse part was when I had almost finished and came into the studio one morning and could see a large patch of yellow on a white area. Luckily it was lifted out with a magic sponge and it was a good lesson on not being too precious.
This painting has taught me a lot, especially when mixing yellow and the subtleties of painting white. I hope it evokes or reminds the viewer of the taste or scent of a peach and takes them back to their own food memory.
Signed giclee prints of Peaches and Cream are available to purchase in my online shop.
