I love fruit as a subject I find it a great way to explore my ideas and practise the use of materials. I have particularly enjoyed drawing in pen. I prefer it to using pencil, I like the permenance of the marks. I have to think and look carefully where I put each line. I have also particularly enjoyed the versatility of oil pastels. They are easily at hand and they are great for colourful textural work.

I have used two techniques to create the banana paintings. Ink drawing with oil pastels and acrylic paint background on the painting of many bananas and then oil pastel on acrylic background in the painting below.

I wanted to experiment with differing styles but still using oil pastels. In many of the fruit drawings I just drew straight onto the background. I hoped to create a bright contrast between the colour of the fruit and contrasting background.

With both the pictures about and below I painted a background uing acrylic paint then stuck a page over the top and pulled it off to take away the paint to create texture, then drew on top with oil pastel.