Preparing for fruit group in colour

This was a bit of experimentation to see how different media worked in depicting fruit in colour.
I took an apple, and drew it first in coloured pencil, which worked quite well with fairly gentle colours.

Then on to pastel pencils, which weren't that different but did give slightly deeper colours.

Watercolour pencils worked in much the same way, but with a bit of water, it was possible to achieve different effects and brighter blocks of colour (as opposed to hatched areas).

Oil pastels provided much deeper colours, and allowed manipulation with fingertips to merge the different component colours. I was also able to scratch out colour to get the stripes of the apple's skin.
The only challenge with oil pastels is that they are less precise (no sharp point on the end), so it tends to end up somewhat more impressionistic than pencil. However, I teally like the medium.

I topped off this exercise with a rather nice shiny red pepper, which I did in oil pastels.

Conclusion: all these media have something to offer, and there tends to be a trade-off between detail and colour intensity. My current favourites, I think, are the oil pastels for their depth of colour, and the watercolour pencils.