I wasn’t looking for art supplies or even for art ideas. I was just shopping for groceries, in a store that doesn’t even sell art materials. And there they were in the produce isle— the most beautiful red pears. I didn’t even think about what they might taste like, I usually buy green pears. All I could think of was how much fun they would be to paint!

My eight year old granddaughter and I are trying to get back into our routine of weekly watercolor painting sessions together. We have never done a still life together, so this was a first.

We each sketched the pears onto scrap paper for practice first and then onto our watercolor paper and started painting.

I’ll let you in on a couple little techniques we used in our paintings. We rubbed a wax candle onto the paper to make resist markings on our blue plates before painting. For the speckles in the pears, we rubbed a watercolor pencil on sandpaper over the wet paint.

I think she did a wonderful job with her first still life painting! You can check out other paintings she’s done at Black Panda Art Studio. I feel so honored to be able to encourage this young lady in growing in her artistic abilities. She inspires me to grow!

Here is my painting of Red Pears on Plate:

We might be finding more inspiration in the produce isle!