Another Weird Pumpkin

Two Pumpkins, colored pencil, 11" x 14"

 

Ever since I encountered a peanut pumpkin (Galeaux d'Eysines) a few years back at a local outdoor market display in autumn and spent the following year growing one and painting it, I look for a weird-looking pumpkin to paint at this time of the year--it's become sort of a tradition for me. 

This year I found a wonderful Jarrahdale pumpkin in Richmond while I was there taking an art class at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. The Jarrahdales come from Australia, where apparently all native pumpkins are green in color, rather than orange. This particular specimen was very imposing at over twenty pounds, its three large lobes presenting a range of lovely warts and bumps to depict.

I spent a couple of weeks drawing my specimen in graphite, and re-drew it several times, trying to capture its unusual form, until I had something with the proper proportions that seemed life-like. But it needed something more...eventually I settled on superimposing a small, bright orange pumpkin next to it for contrast, and that seemed to make for a much better painting--the tale of two pumpkins!

 

Grisaille underdrawing with dark sepia colored pencil.

Once I had drawn the pumpkins on my presentation paper (Bristol 300 plate vellum finish), I started shading my drawing with a dark sepia colored pencil, gradually darkening the forms. Using this grisaille technique, I then started adding some color, building up it gradually in layers. The main color is Faber-Castell Earth Green, a dusty gray-green shade.

 

Building up the color.

I'm not sure my piece is quite finished yet--I may yet darken further some parts of the drawing at the top. I thought of trying to add a native Australian flower or plant behind the Jarrahdale, but I don't think it needs it-- the juxtaposition of the great big dull-colored pumpkin against the small bright colored one seems to be enough to tell the story.

The Value of a Sketch

One assignment from the Tilghman Island workshop was to do about ten value sketches, a term used in art for a simple drawing in black and white to study light and shadow. One sketches with single lines and then connects the lines into blocks of shadow, to analyze the design on paper.

I sketched this with two Sharpie pens--one thin point and one thick--while sitting in an Adirondack chair in a shady spot on the grounds of Black Walnut Point Inn at the southern tip of the island. Doing this loosened me up and got me thinking in terms of abstract design rather than drawing individual objects. The lesson then hopefully carries through into your actual painting in oils later.