Golden Delicious

My neighbor's Golden Delicious apple tree is loaded with fruit, despite its height of less than five feet. They were quite greenish in color when picked, but have now ripened to their beautiful eponymous color. That monochromatic coloring doesn't lend itself to a drawing quite as dramatic as the Gala variety that I drew a while back, but I really loved the brown marking on the skin near the stem. Now that apple season is upon us, I'm hoping to fit in drawings of a few more varieties for this series:

Any favorites you'd like me to look for?

An apple a day...

"Gala apple"
Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge paper
(click to enlarge)

No, I'm not starting a new challenge of drawing an apple a day (although I'd like to do some more varieties); it's just that the last two days produced the two parts of this drawing.

I used Stonehenge paper for a change, and tried to practice restraint and not lay on each layer too thickly. So, whether it's the paper or the way I worked, I am happy with these.

I took a few WIP shots early on, but the got carried away and forgot to take more:

Some apples to hold you over

Well, I'm still working away on that pinecone drawing. (Scroll down if you missed that post.) My already-slow pace came to a screeching halt this past week while I've enjoyed some family visits. So, to hold you over, I'm posting a drawing of two little lady apples that I started during the holidays. It was intended to be larger (see below), but I got caught up in the holidays, and the apples started to look a little tired.  I love these beautiful little apples; the better produce markets always stock them at the winter holidays. The scale isn't evident in this drawing, but they're just a couple of inches in diameter—perfect for tucking in among evergreeens and pinecones on the mantel or on the dining table.

Now, back to that pinecone...

Illustration Friday: Mesmerizing

I'm beginning to think that I have the Kenner toy company to thank for my fascination with radial symmetry. In 1966, they introduced the Spirograph, one of the most mesmerizing toys of all time. I drew with mine until its skinny pens dried out and I had to make do with whatever else we had in the house. And when they introduced the Super Spirograph a year later, well, I was one obsessed little geek...er, little girl.


I'm sure the seeds of my interest had already been sown: Like most kids, I loved making paper snowflakes, and I still love the expressions on kids' faces when they open up that pie-shaped paper they've been cutting. But if I had to guess, my very first glimpse of the amazing radial symmetry found in nature was probably this one—still one of the most elegant examples, to be sure—the star in the center of an apple.

So, thank you, Kenner Products, for the fact that I once wrote a college term paper on these, have this on my coffee table, and these in my portfolio:

If you're interested, here's a link to a fabulous page by someone who clearly loved his Spirograph as much as I loved mine. Did you have a favorite creative toy growing up? Let the nostalgia begin!