Over the summer, sometimes the different techniques learned throughout the school year can get a little rusty. To keep up with my illustrator skills while on break, I decided to challenge myself by making a set of fruit themed illustrations.

The idea of it seemed easy enough considering its just fruit, but the process was anything but easy. I started by finding reference pictures online that I felt were the most aesthetically pleasing. These were used to get the basic shapes and colors for each individual fruit. Once I had the basic outlines done and some of the colors picked out, it was time to start making the fruit more dynamic by shading. The different tones throughout the work are meant to create more dimensions, giving the sense that it’s a whole object, and not just two-dimensional. This was probably the most difficult part considering the amount of variations in color and texture that can take place within each individual fruit. After many changes in colors, shapes, and opacities, I was left with finishing touches and finally, a piece of fruit.

Small projects like these have been helping me practice using programs like Illustrator, while creating a larger body of work for my portfolio. They also give me something to work on to pass the time throughout the summer, so it’s a win-win-win.

Here are a few of the fruit illustrations I’ve done so far: