Sita's Fruit

This is called Sita's fruit in India - Sita was the wife of Rama, the hero of the epic Ramayana - and custard apple elsewhere.

The fruit is soft, grainy off-white, and wrapped around glossy black seeds. The best way to eat it is to cut of the top and spoon out the fruit. It has a delicate flavour that I like - not everyone does.

Pencil and watercolour wash, with a bit of ink here and there in the shadows.

An Experiment

I decided to try several things that were unfamiliar to me all at once. I painted the same picture on an acrylic background, using gouache; watercolours; and watecolour pencil. Not happy with the results, but I've learned a few things. First of all, the colours bead up on the acrylic -- though it happened least with the pencils, because I used a very small amount of water just to dissolve the colours which I had put on dry. Then, I wasn't able to get intensity from the watercolours at all. And the gouache, though it went on darker, somehow turned to mud. I might add that I'm not good at painting flowers in the first place - so that's another part of the experiment. Well, anyway, here they are, my blobby flowers:

Gouache on gold acrylic

Watercolour on gold acrylic

Watercolour pencil on gold acrylic (my acrylic layer was thinner and smoother for this one, which may have helped the pencil to adhere more smoothly)