Watercolor painting of a Pyrex bowl and saucer

There are approximately sixteen gradient shapes in this painting of a Pyrex bowl and saucer. I started with a simple drawing comprised of a couple of partially sketched lines as an outline. Then, beginning with the lowest layer and working forward, I drew various shaped-gradients and applied the vertical motion blur filter effect to each of the shapes. This left translucent and transparent areas in the shapes, through which the lower layer peeked.

The light on the rims and the sides of the bowl and saucer, for example, are merely not shaded at all. The clean edges of the gradient shapes at the top of each gradient shape provide the contrast necessary for the eye to "see" the edges of the bowl and and of the saucer although these are not actually drawn -- merely sketched, and not sketched completely.

The vertical motion blur filter effect simulates a wash, as if the brush stroke began clean at the top and ran out of material near the bottom of the effect. The vertical motion blur filter works really well in Inkscape paintings that are meant to simulate water color shades and materials.

SVG source in XML format is available on Google docs.