Sunday, August 24, 2014

Three limes and a paper bag


Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge paper ("Fawn", I think)
Approx. 5" x 6"

I bought some limes the other day to make this yummy melon gazpacho. As I was unpacking the groceries, they tumbled out of the bag and I thought they looked so beautiful—their bright, shiny green skins against the brown paper bag. (This drawing is a bit looser than some that I do...I had to get those limes juiced for the gazpacho at some point!)

But as I was drawing, I couldn't decide who was the star—the limes or the paper bag? Who doesn't enjoy the age-old classic challenge of drawing a crumpled paper bag? The limes won out, so I left the bag as just a few lines and shadows. (Now I'm in the mood to draw the bag all by itself and let it be the star this time.)

But the image above is a cropped version of the actual drawing. I've written posts about cropping before (here), but it's always an interesting challenge for me. I don't draw digitally, but I have come to rely on (or be dependent upon?) the Photoshop cropping tool. It's probably not a good thing that I know that I can, for all practical purposes, "compose" my drawing after-the-fact. I could play around with cropping for ages—I love being able to crop an image different ways for different uses, frames, etc.

Here's the actual full drawing:


And this one is "zoomed out" a bit further than the image at the top of the post:


And a square formatted one, for what it's worth:


What do you think? Is the cropping tool a crutch or just another wonderful tool to work with? Oh, and which of these cropped versions do you prefer?

5 comments:

  1. I like number three because the limes are really beautiful spilling out of the bag. There seems to be more movement with it. By the way, the gazpacho was yummy!

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  2. I like all the versions, but I suppose if I were doing it I'd pick the way you cropped it in the top version. You do such beautiful work!

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  3. Love the lime green and paper brown together, it works wonderfully. I like the square format best, but all work just as well.

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