Veggies

I decided that I would start every day with a pencil and wash drawing of some vegetable(s). The first day, I went to the fridge and took out three out of the four vegetables that are cooked every day (the fourth being onions): ginger, green chillies and tomatoes. Some small eggplants were lying in the bin, so I added one of those as well.

I started with the ginger, and tried to pay very close attention to all of its knobs and ridges. I was pretty happy with it.

Then the chillie. It was harder, because it had fewer features, and I had a difficult time making the colours intense enough. I started with an underglaze of yellow, but after several washes of greens, trying to get the colours right, I lost the yellow, so had to go back and add it again. Then I lost the highlight... sigh.

The tomatoes were even tougher, especially the one on the left - did you know that that was meant to be a tomato? No particular features, and that incredible red/ orange...

Finally the little eggplant, which was more satisfactory.

Drawing and painting these vegetables was so intense and satisfying! I got into that wordless mode where one is very focussed on what one is doing, and was very sorry when I fell out of it again, into the noisy world.

Pineapple

The day that I painted the vegetables just below this, I went to the store to buy some more models to paint. I thought I'd make sure to get some fruits / vegetables with more features, protrusions, patterns, than the tomatoes and green chillies of the morning. So I bought the most fiendishly complicated fruit available, the pineapple, of all things!

Don't ask why it's about to take a nosedive - it's about turning the paper to make it fit; and about being left-handed. It would have looked better if I'd flipped the image vertically, but then the shadow would have been on top.

The pineapple was somewhat skinny and bedraggled, so I painted it that way. I keep having to go back and adding another layer of glaze, because I'm timid about the colours. So then I went overboard on the body of the pineapple, and made it much too orange. I tried to tone that down with a layer of sepia, and the whole thing melted into a blur. And of course, it's more of a symbol of a pineapple than the amazingly intricate thing itself. I enjoyed looking at all its patterns and folds, anyway.

Moo

I confess that I drew this, not from life, but from a fuzzy old photograph taken by R, which we were going to throw away. It is a Chennai cow, anyway.

My father had several talents of interest to small children: he could wiggle his ears; he had a signet ring - we called it his magic ring - which he could make disappear; but most of all, he was really good at mooing. He was sparing in performing all of these wonders, so that they retained their desirability. But once in awhile we would say, "Make a moo, Daddy!" and he would oblige. It began with a long, deep "MMMMMMMM", and then extended out to "oooooooo", and it was very satisfactory indeed.