Emerging Rhubarb

Today I began an illustration of rhubarb, in particular Victoria Rhubarb:

I decided to try to work a little more loosely again on this one after reading an article in Watercolor magazine in which one artist said they start by working all the large shapes out and then go into the smaller and smaller details. Sometimes I can get caught up in one little area until it seems perfect and have a hard time moving on; and sometimes that turns out looking really neat, but other times it means I can't fit the rest of the picture in while making it in proportion to what's already there. I also thought that this might once again help me work faster. (If I had endless amounts of time I would probably spend twelve hours on every little painting at least, but I  guess that's silly.) Tomorrow I will put in the details, probably with colored pencil.
So, an interesting fact about rhubarb, (that gardeners know, but if you don't garden you probably don't), is that the leaves are poisonous. They contain oxalic acid, which is corrosive and bad for your kidneys. Although wikipedia tells me that it has been used in Chinese medicine as a laxative.

Cowpeas

Here is the finished illustration of Cowpeas, aka Southern Peas:

As you can see, they come in all sorts of colors. The variety I'm used to is Mississippi Silver, not too fancy to look at, but tasty. That's what we grew at Twin Oaks while I was there, (and they probably still do). Cowpeas did especially well in the greenhouse in the summer. It took us a while to figure out when they were ready to harvest. For some time we were harvesting them when the pods started to feel thinner, but were still green, but that led to really long pea shelling hours. They just didn't want to pop open. Eventually we realized they were much easier to deal with when the pods were brown and papery and the beans were dry.
I guess it might be because I am from the north, but I had never had a cowpea until I lived at Twin Oaks. In fact if you'd asked me i wouldn't have been able to tell you what a black eyed pea even looked like, regardless of the descriptive name. I wonder how many other northerners are missing out on this yummy food. Well, if you are a gardener and don't want to be missing out, the SESE catalog tells me that the Queen Anne variety can grow well in most northern states.
And fun fact about the cowpea... it originated on the African continent and was cultivated there around 5 to 6 thousand years ago.

Keystone Resistant Giant Peppers

Today I am posting some bell peppers I did a week or two ago, (Since spending time with my sister, nieces, and brother-in-law for the last time in over a month takes precedence over art, the cowpeas are not done.) Keystone Resistant Giants:

This is, of course, another illustration for SESE done in watercolor and colored pencil. The peppers are "resistant" because they are resistant to the tobacco mosaic virus, which is a virus that infects members of the solanaceae family giving them spotty discoloration on the leaves, like a mosaic.
I was trying to think of a story about peppers and I can only think of a slightly embarrassing one that I am sure many other people have had a similar experience to. I was working as an intern on the Dartmouth Organic Farm. Now, this is a farm at an ivy league league college where you would expect the workers to really know a lot about what they are doing. You would expect them to know at least the basics of the vegetables they are growing. But, do not be fooled. Just attending a college with a good reputation does not make a person smart or well informed. I was there to learn after all, and when Scott Stokoe, the farm manager, told me to go harvest the peppers, I went and picked a bunch of really nice looking big, green peppers... to Scott's surprise. He of course was very kind about it, as always, and informed me that they turn red when they are ripe. That is when they are sweeter and more flavorful. That is also why the green ones are always so much cheaper in the grocery store. Ah, well, now I know.

half a rutabaga + half a southern pea = one whole painting

I woke up this morning thinking that the rutabagas I posted yesterday were not finished. They were missing shadows and needed the light colored lines at the top of the rutagaba below the stems to be more defined. So I went back into them. A fun way to add light-colored detail to a watercolor painting is to scratch off the watercolor, and even a bit of the paper, with the point of a razor:

Much better I think. And for another couple of rutabaga facts: you can eat the leaves too. I guess that might be obvious to some since you can eat turnip greens and cabbage leaves and it is a mix of the two. Anyway, I was also wondering why they put the wax on the outside of the ones you buy in the grocery store. Cabbage and turnips both store well in a cool, humid environment, so why the extra processing step? Well, turns out it is done just before marketing so they look more attractive and don't shrivel in the store, but if you are storing your own rutabagas you probably shouldn't wax them because it could actually make them not store for very long.

And the other half of a painting I worked on is of southern peas, also known as cow peas, field peas, crowder peas, and black-eyed peas:

These are a rather confusing vegetable. They look like a bean, but they are called a pea. Which one are they? Well, SESE solves the problem by putting them in their very own catagory in the seed catalog. And I suppose they deserve to be recognised as a distinct vegetable, although they are really more of a bean. The catalog tells us they "can be boiled, frozen, canned, or dried. Green seeds can be roasted like peanuts. Scorched seeds can be used as a coffee substitute. Leaves may be used as a potherb." I have had them after they have been boiled, frozen and dried, but none of the other ways. Most importantly, each time I have had them, they were yummy. 

On the third day she ate... Rutabagas!

Yesterday I was collecting pictures of rutabagas to use as reference for this painting and I had to go out and get one for dinner because they are so yummy!

Maybe I am not very observant with my taste buds, but I never realized that they taste kind of like turnips until I saw in the SESE catalog that they are also called Swedish Turnips. Then, of course, it clicked. So I did a little rutabaga research online and discovered that it was originally a cross between a cabbage and turnip. They're called Swedish turnips because, as it says on Wikipedia, "The first known printed reference to the rutabaga comes from the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin in 1620, where he notes that it was growing wild in Sweden." It also says that "rutabaga is the common American and Canadian term for the plant. It comes from the old Swedish word Rotabagge, meaning simply "root bag". "Swede" is the preferred term used in England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of the world that use British English as a standard." I love these tasty swedes... Anyway, rutabaga always makes me think of Thanksgiving and Christmas because we would always have it mashed as one of the sides. And it also makes me think of my mom preparing it by chopping it up with this huge, heavy clever made by my grandpa. Those are some tough root bags!

day 2 - Mortgage Lifter VFN Tomato

The last twenty-four hours were kind of crazy and tiring so I am posting some four day old art, but don't worry. Tomatoes will stay good for more than four days, especially if you put them in a drawing pad and put that in a backpack. So these ones are still quite fresh: Mortgage Lifter VFN Tomatoes

These were done in spurts while watching my nieces with my mom and Juneau, my partner, on the same day I went to visit Catalpa Farm in Columbia City, Indiana where a woman named Soni raises a few heritage variety chickens for both eggs and meat. She was a well spoken, friendly, informative and kind woman, and her chickens were healthy and free to forage, but more on that all another day when I am ready with a chicken portrait... As for the mortgage lifters, they were done on bristol board with watercolor and colored pencil as always. The days before I was looking at other people's art on etsy and saw someone else who has done a number of tomatos, which I liked. They were looser and lighter than mine normally are and I think his tomatoes were in my head when I was working on these. I consider it a good influence. You can see his tomatos here if you want: http://www.etsy.com/shop/bobbyjoefontenot?section_id=6932799

And now some fun facts from the SESE catalog:
This tomato is an improved version of the original Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter. It has added disease resistance and more uniform fruit, ripening to red rather than pink-red. But the Radiator Charlie's story is good so it must be told. Fromt he catalog: "Developed by M.C. Byles in the 1930s and released to SESE in 1985. A legendary tomato always in demand in the Mid-Atlantic states. The following history is based on portions of our 1985 taped interview with M.C. Byles who developed this tomato in the early 1930's while in Logan, WV. Mr. Byles is affectionately known as "Radiator Charlie". He earned that nickname from the radiator repair business he opened at the foot of a steep hill on which trucks would often overheat. Radiator Charlie had no formal education or plant breeding experience, yet he created this legendary tomato by cross-breeding four of the largest-fruited tomatoes he could find: 'German Johnson', 'Beefsteak', an Italian variety, and an English variety. One of the four varieties was planted in the middle of a circle. Then, using a baby's ear syringe, he cross-pollinated the center plant with pollen from the circle of tomatoes. Next year he selected the best seedlings: he planted the best seedlings in the center and the rest in a circle around it. The pollination and selection process was repeated six more years until he had a stable variety. After Charlie developed and named this large tasty tomato, he sold plants for $1.00 each (in the 1940's) and paid off the $6000 mortgage on his house in 6 years. Each spring, gardeners drove as far as 200 miles to buy Charlie's seedling tomatoes."

The first day/catnip

I felt like I wasn't getting around to art enough. So, I have decided I am going to post some piece of art on here everyday. Most of the time it will be whatever I did the day before, whether its more veggie illustrations for SESE, or just half of a painting that I am in the middle of, or a new chicken painting, or just a simple sketch because that was what I had time or energy to do. And I plan on writing a little something about the things I post also, rather than just putting the picture up. Hopefully it will be a story about the subject matter, a fun fact or two from the SESE catalog, or just why or how I felt like drawing or painting what I did. So here we go, day number one: Catnip

This picture is a bit flattened/stretched sideways due to this computer. I am not sure how to fix it.
I did this one over yesterday and this morning. It is another illustration for an SESE seed packet.
(If you are reading this and don't know what SESE is, it stands for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and they are a company that sells vegetable and flower seeds, a lot of which are heirloom and/or organic. They are owned by an income-sharing, egalitarian, intentional community called Acorn located in central, rural Virginia, and they are really great. :) I began doing illustrations for them a number of years ago when I moved to another intentional community down the road called Twin Oaks.)
The painting is done in watercolor and a little bit of colored pencil on bristol board. The cat in the painting is my mom's cat, Elijiah. He is fun and playful and cuddly and also a bit weird. I knew I wanted to use him in the catnip picture, but I needed him to actually look like he was playing with catnip and I didn't have any around. So, I took advantage of one of his weirdnesses, (some people might find this a bit gross as a warning), which is that he really likes to roll around on my shirt after I go for a jog, very similiar to how he would be if he were rolling around on catnip. As weird and gross as it may be, I think it worked out well for the picture.

And, fun facts from the SESE catalog about catnip:
Only about two out of three cats are amused by catnip. The remainder who do not have the dominant gene for this response are bored by this plant. Medicinal: Traditionally catnip used for colds and flu primarily as a diaphoretic for feverish conditions. Nepetalactone, the primary ingredient of the essential oil is chemically similar to the sedative constituents of valerian.