Painting a Pumpkin

Pumpkin 'Galeux d'Eysines' watercolor, 14.5" h x 21"w.

 

I've been working on a painting of this variety of pumpkin since last fall, for a show "The Botanical Gourmet" that I've been planning for the Botanical Art Society of the National Capital Region (BASNCR) this coming November. My painting started out as just the ripe pumpkin, but eventually, it became more and more involved. In order to tell the story of this particular pumpkin, I felt that I needed to show more of the vine that produces this lovely, warty pumpkin, as well as what its interior holds.

What follows is the gradual progression of steps that it took to get the painting to its finish.

 

Galeux d'Eysines pumpkin - Stage 1

 

The first stage was completed in late November or early December of 2021. I then cut the pumpkin, saved one piece, and cooked the rest. The pumpkin had sat around on my drawing table for way too long, and being so old, it was not very palatable--I used some to make pumpkin bread, so that it could be tastier.

Galeux d'Eysines pumpkin - Stage 2

 

I worked on the second stage through January of this year, as quickly as possible, since the cut piece was decaying rapidly. At this point, I decided the painting needed something more, to tie in the two elements of the composition--one way to make it more dynamic would be to add the vine and depict the leaves and flowers of Galeux d'Eysines. I looked on-line for photos that I might be able to use, but found none--the only way to really study the leaves and flowers would be to grow the pumpkin myself. 

I could have saved some of the seeds from the pumpkin I had and planted them, but open-pollinated pumpkins from the field might not yield the same exact variety that I was looking for. It was wiser to buy some seeds that were sure to be the pure Galeux d'Eysines strain. I found that Johnny's Seeds offered some, and I ordered them.

Waiting until after the last frost, I planted my pumpkin seeds in a grow bag, and they sprouted within a week. It has been fascinating to see the process: the vine growing and flowering, observing the differences between the male and female flowers. The male flowers seem to outnumber the female by about a twelve to one ratio--nature allocates its resources wisely, so that the plant will invest most of its energy into producing fruit and seed.

 

Galeux d'Eysines pumpkin - Stage 3

 

As soon as my pumpkin vine had enough leaves and some male flowers, I began sketching them. I laid tracing paper over my painting and drew in the vine with leaves and male flowers, weaving these along lines that would move the eye across the painting.

 

Galeux d'Eysines pumpkin - Stage 4

 

 After painting the upper vine, flowers and growing tip, I needed to find a way to bring the eye down and around the pumpkin and the cut piece, and had to take a bold step--to cut into an already painted segment of both in order to insert a piece of vine with a leaf in between these two main elements. This took a lot of lifting and scrubbing, to remove the color underneath. I was not able to remove all of the color, but hoped to be able to paint over it enough to not be too noticeable.

Once this was done, I had to wait another couple of weeks for a female flower to come along. The first one appeared on the vine during a very hot spell, and dried up before it had a chance to develop, so I waited for another one.

Eventually, one female flower developed sufficiently to open. I took photos of both the bud and the next day, the flower--these flowers only last one day. A few days later, the pumpkin began to grow larger, indicating it had been pollinated.

Female flower bud

Female flower opens

Pumpkin begins to grow.

It was so exciting to see this fascinating process take place from day to day! But about a week later, I noticed that the little pumpkin was not growing, and when I went to check, saw that the vine stem had been chewed--squash borers had pierced the stem! Very disappointed, I opened up the stem to clean out any larva feeding there, and buried the part of the stem that had not been eaten, trying to get the vine to re-root.

It was too late to save that portion of the vine with the tiny pumpkin, but it seems the borers didn't get to the main stem of my vine, so I may yet have a chance to grow another pumpkin before the end of the season. But, in any case, I had all the pieces I needed to complete my painting, which you see here.

Galeux d'Eysines Pumpkin, finished painting.

The last step was to add some subtle shadows to let the pumpkin and the cut piece "sit" on the ground. This has probably been one of the most complex compositions I've done so far, involving so many different processes, requiring both gardening and artistic skills, and lots of patience!

Working on a New Painting

Rhododendron maximum

 A couple of weeks ago I started on a painting of the native Rosebay Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) flowers that I'd planned for some time. This tree-sized Rhododendron flowers late in the year, from mid-June to as late as July, depending on the location and exposure. The photo above is my specimen, and it was taken during a trip to Mountain Lake Biological Station a few years back. I had been saving this image, with a few other supplementary ones, until I had some time to develop a painting.

I "edit" my photos whenever possible so that the composition is already close to what I want--in this case, a branch with two lovely flower clusters. The problem here was that there was another branch crossing  the focal one, which had to be "edited" out in the drawing. After the usual steps of drawing and transferring the line drawing to the watercolor paper, I was ready to start laying in some color.

Step 1

I began with some pale washes of lavender on the central cluster to articulate the form of the flowers, and after that was dry, put in the touches of pink. The buds of this plant are tinted a beautiful, pure pink at the tip, which fade to a pale pink, or even white, after the flowers open. After the flowers were dry, I added the characteristic dots on the petals, and the darks of the bud scales behind, to define the outlines of the petals.

Step 2

Then I repeated the same process with the second flower cluster. This one shows more of the unopened bud covered with their orangey scales. Once this was done, it was time to start on the leaves. The leaves of this Rhododendron have a dull shine, but they still have some blue reflections from the sky. I started with a wash of light blue and a bit of yellow-green for the main vein and let it dry. Rewetting  one half of the leaf, I then began to fill in the leaf with dark green, lifting portions of the wash to suggest the shape and the veins.

Step 3

The leaf  was not very successful, so I re-wet it and lifted more color for better balance. After it dried again, I added touches of deeper green here and there to bring out the veins. This process was repeated for each leaf except the one on the right, where the underside of the leaf shows--the color of the underside is yellower and has no shine.

Step 4

Step 5

After the leaves were complete, and the woody stem, the flowers appeared too pale in comparison, and my composition seemed to have a "hole" at the top of the focal cluster. I added two unopened buds for a bit more interest, but the flowers still need something more to punch them up. I'm in the process of using colored pencils on the flowers (light gray and sepia) to try to define and bring out the edges more. I'll post the finished piece soon.