Red and yellow pepper troubles

Annie

Hello everyone ,
As I’m working on these two peppers , I realize I need to go way darker on the bottom part of the yellow pepper . 

When I add burnt umber , it’s too smudgy . When I add more orange , too light .
im not sure now how to get the shadow on the yellow pepper . 

Any advice , please ?

Thank you so much ,
annie 

Abstraction

I'm struggling to advise because it looks like you've taken two peppers and then created your own background. But the peppers do not exist in a vacuum. Where there is shadow, the reflected light bouncing off the surface of something else hits the peppers and affects the colour with its own colour. So under the peppers this very dark surface should be reflected and creating an intense dark. It's a combination of the yellow darkened down and whatever that surface is.

Also on the other sides - something on the left side of the yellow pepper should be affecting the colour of the edges. And whatever is in front of the peppers...

What I did here in photoshop is close to the background colour made warmer as it hits the yellow and the red.

dencal

Annie

You need specks of red and blue (purple) to grey down the yellow to a shadow tone.

Denis

Annie

@Abstraction

Oh , yes .. I see !
So I’d use the background color on the pepper , then . 
Indeed I just took those peppers and created just this ( I think ) pretty brownish grey with black and mars red, white and ultramarine blue .
I appreciate it . Thank you very much 

Annie

@dencal
Thank you very much .
I used a tiny bit of dioxazine purple for the darker parts so far . Perhaps not enough …to the point where I started doubting that that was the way to go .

tassieguy

Your doing well with this @Annie. You just need to tie the peppers into the background and probably soften some edges. 

That was a great demonstration, @Abstraction.  Almost losing the lower edges of the peppers turned the form and made such a difference in terms of 3D effect. 

Annie

@tassieguy

Thank you !
Yes I agree on the edges . Im
trying to make it come together . 

And agreed on the demonstration too. I never cease to be amazed by the helpfullness .

KingstonFineArt

@Annie
Yellow and Violet are complimentary colors. Violet made from Ultramarine Blue and Cad Red Dark is the darkest color/value on the palette. Mixing the yellow the pepper with a Violet would make a good miid value neutral.

Annie

@KingstonFineArt
Thank you . That’s actually very helpful 😊.

I will try this .

allforChrist

I can't offer better help than what the other forum members have said. 

I agree and you did a really lovely job on these peppers, @Annie.

Annie

@allforChrist
Thank you so much . Makes me happy . 

MichaelD

These are looking good @Annie and im sure will be even better once you have tweaked them.