Pear trunk

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“Recently” is a word I use a lot. It has a temporal vagueness that’s irresistible to my under-rested brain. Anyway, “recently,” G pointed at the stem on a pear and called it the “trunk.” I thought that was funny and made plans to draw how that might work.

I made little sketches and thought about how to keep it simple. I tried inking a couple with nib pens. I decided I was working too small for comfort and scaled up to one of my practice-wash pages from the tree and moon drawing. For the larger, textured paper, I felt that brushes would suit the simple lines better than nibs. My ink brushes are a motley bunch, heavily used in the past; clearly a long holiday hasn’t let them grow back the ability to form a point! So I had scaled up my scale problem, but the brushes did glide smoothly over the paper.

In keeping with my original vision (“I see…I see a pear, growing out of the ground!“), I made everything nice and simple. Thanks to my preliminary drawings, I knew more or less how I wanted to accomplish that.

Ink over leftover wash

There’s not that much to see in the first picture; I just wanted to show how awful this rejected sunset wash was (remember, I was trying to make it smooth). Next was to give the pear and grass some bulk of their own.

Coloured pear trunk

The shadows under the pear really aren’t finished, after one watercolour session. It’s possible I’ll improve it sometime.

I’m quite hoping for some more inspiration from G for my next drawing.