Hillbillies, squirrels, and the drought

"Hillbilly" heirloom tomato

Prismacolor colored pencils on Stonehenge paper

Between the drought and a pair of brazen black squirrels, it's been a tough summer for my vegetable garden. Everyone's tomatoes are late this year, and I think the vines are finally producing more tomatoes than the squirrels want. This is an heirloom variety called "Hillbilly". They are deeply lobed, and are gorgeous colors. This first one that I picked—before the squirrels got it—weighed in at around a pound:

The one I used for the model for my drawing seemed to ripen and change colors before my eyes:

There are loads of green tomatoes out there, just waiting to ripen; the fact that it's supposed to be 100 degrees here today should hasten that process!

SunSugar Cherry Tomatoes

Hmmm. This is one of those pieces that didn't turn out quite as I'd envisioned. Maybe I should've used richer colors, or should add a background—I'm not sure. Things just haven't clicked: I even felt like the hot weather was affecting my pencils, making them waxier than usual! 

These little "SunSugar" cherry tomatoes are so beautiful on the vine—the way the clusters become a rainbow of color as they ripen. I wanted to capture that stage, as I've drawn fully ripe ones in the past. 

Here are a few work-in-progress pics. This time, I used an empty slide mount instead of my usual viewfinder that I've shown you before:

I decided to enlarge it to 5x the original little thumbnail sketch on the right:

The tomatoes continued to ripen and change colors as I worked—what a show!

As I look at this next pic, I'm thinking that I like this "unfinished" stage more than the final one. The negative space where the vine will go might've looked more interesting left alone."Food for thought" for the next piece.

Well, while there's nothing horrible about this drawing,

I think that I'll chalk it up as a learning piece.

(Or maybe I'll just have to add a background before it drives me crazy...!)

A Tomato Family

Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum, 5" x 8"

When I was setting up this still life, it occurred to me that it looked like a little family portrait. So, the whole time I was drawing these tomatoes, I envisioned them as such: Mom, Dad, the baby next to its mother, and the two older children by the father—one refusing to sit up straight.

These folks were all born and raised in my garden: the "parents" are a wonderful heirloom variety called "Kellogg's Breakfast". They're a beautiful yellow-orange, and are fleshy, very sweet, and have few seeds. You'd almost think you're eating a nectarine—so delicious. The "kids" are "Sugar Sun" cherry tomatoes, also really yummy.

There's nothing quite like a beautiful still life. Here are two of my favorite still life painters:

Janet Rickus paints gorgeous, often whimsical, pieces. (I think that perhaps her sense of humor led me to create a tomato "family" with my own drawing.) Her work is hard to describe in words...you've got to take a peek here.

Abby Ryan creates a daily oil painting, usually an elegantly simple still life, and they're gorgeous. Each painting is then auctioned off on eBay. She collaborates with a potter, Jury Smith, who creates beautiful pieces specifically for use in still life paintings. Isn't that fascinating? And you can even watch videos of Abby painting on her blog and her website. It's a joy to watch.

I hope you'll check them out!

Illustration Friday: Boundaries

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes • Prismacolor Pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum

"Now, my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."

The animals around my garden have not been heeding their mothers' admonitions about respecting boundaries.  What started as a tentative nibble on a spaghetti squash, has escalated to bold beheading of sunflowers, and brazen feasting on tomatoes.  Are my nighttime visitors squirrels, raccoons...or maybe even rats?  I'm not sure, but when I see their handiwork in the morning, I can't help but picture them more as Beatrix Potter characters than as garden pests.  Fortunately, there are plenty of vegetables for all of us.

•   •   •

While on the topic of boundaries, I was thinking about how Illustration Friday really transcends all geographic boundaries.  I want to mention two artists and fellow bloggers, well-known to many of you, from distant points on the globe (well, distant from where I live). They're both very generous with their comments, very prolific (I'm convinced that neither one sleeps) and if you haven't visited their blogs, now's the time:

From Hokkaido, Japan: Check out DosankoDebbie's Etegami Notebook. Her artwork is so beautiful and unique. She has multiple blogs (!) and amazing talents, and I learn something from each and every post.

From Newscastle, NSW, Australia, Andrew Finnie. He creates fascinating, beautiful (and sometimes surreal) digital illustrations, and his accompanying text is just as entertaining. And recently, he has blogged about an exhibition of his paintings, which are completely different than his digital work, and are simply sublime. Oh, and he's a surfer and an optometrist in his other life.

Enjoy!

Ten Minutes of Imperfection

My kids are right: I talk too much...even in a sketchbook. For more about my embarking on The Sketchbook Project, click here.