Two Mangoes on a plate

I stumbled upon these two mangoes at the grocery store recently. I popped them into my grocery cart. Then I rushed home and could not wait to put them on a bright white plate.

Part of a Series

Voila! Here’s to my next painting. In this case, these two colorful and luscious mangoes are a part of a series I describe here. The way I see it, these mangoes are a perfect antidote to winter. Even though we have had a pretty mild winter, the view outside is grey and muted.

What better way to add some color to my kitchen and studio than these colorful companions.

Anticipation

I confess that the hardest part of this painting was resisting turning the subject matter into a favorite summer drink. As I painted these two mangoes on the plate, I practically tasted the fruity, velvety, not too sweet flavor of a Mango Lassi. Yes, that link in that last sentence is to a quick and easy recipe to make your very own Mango Lassi.

Even though I’ve lived here in the South my entire adult life, I have never taken to that year round Southern drink, Iced Tea. But bring me a Mango Lassi? And, no I don’t mean the TV series Lassie. I mean take those 2 mangoes off the plate, pop them in the blender with some water, a pinch of sugar, a few ice cubes and a few cardamom seeds. Oh my, oh my, you will have a delicious drink that quenches and delights.

I actually look forward to the days of summer when I can enjoy this drink. If you are interested in buying mangoes, here’s a quick video on how to pick and ripen your very own mango.

Artist’s Notes

This painting had several challenges. First, I set this still life up in natural light. Typically, natural light is cool. Think…blue-ish. So, first challenge is getting my mind to paint warm red and orange objects in cool light.

The second challenge is part semantics and part just the way things are. What do I mean? I mean there is no such thing as “still life” when it comes to painting food, people or organic objects of any kind. Yet, these mangoes did not change shape as I painted them.

However, the colors of the mangoes changed quite a bit. The mango in the foreground had a pretty significant amount of lime green on the top left. But it absolutely disappeared by the third day of this painting.

The mango in the background started off almost entirely lime green. In a short amount of time, it changed and ripened from that lime green to a more yellow green and lots of gold, orange and deep red colors.

Artist Tools

At some point, I had to make a decision about the colors for each mango. I let go of the lime green on the foreground mango. And, I added more yellow to the green in the background mango. Additionally, I had to pay very close attention to the values of each. Assigning a value to a color helped me to see if I was creating a three dimensional object.

In other words, I have a tendency to paint in a limited value range. So, if black is the number 10 and white the number 1, I tend to choose values in the middle or 5 range. Painting in a limited value range is a problem for an artist, like me, who wants to communicate form and light’s impact on that form. So, I know I need to push myself to put wider values in a painting than I might otherwise do. I write about the importance of knowing my tendencies as an artist in this blog post here. For a thoughtful and informative description of the need to focus on values as a realist artist, read this short post here. Note that the author uses the term ‘tone’ for value. It’s OK to use these two words interchangeably.

Another tool I use to help me discern values is my phone’s camera. I take a picture of the painting with the still life set up in the background. Then I convert the photograph to black and white. In this example, you can see how much brighter the actual mangoes are compared to my painting. So, I used the camera as a tool to help me diagnose and correct a problem. And, even though this photo looks as if I paint in the dark, don’t worry! I don’t. There is good light from my north facing window in our dining room. I took this photograph after that light had dissipated for the day!

Colorful Result

So, even though I did a color study ahead of doing this painting, I realized I had to be flexible. I had to pay attention to these two tricky, but beautiful and color changing mangoes. The result is a colorful celebration of a delicious fruit. I hope you enjoy this painting and post. The painting is for sale here. And, to receive weekly emails of my posts with new paintings in your inbox, you can sign up here.

Enjoy and please share your thoughts on mangoes in the comments below! Are you a mango lassi fan, too? Do tell!