Daily Archives: August 25, 2017

Harvest Time: an Ugly Duckling Tale

Posted August 24, 2017 by Kerry McFall

The heat has not been nice to my cucumber vines.  My tomato vines are not happy either.  Even though Ricardo my young garden assistant watered faithfully and thoroughly while we traveled a couple of weeks ago, now my backyard is full of crispy sunburnt leaves, and wilted stems.  I got my old re-purposed lawn chairs/vine supports out late this year, so nothing wanted to grow as I envisioned, leaving a garden full of ground-hugging ugly veggies.  Not good.  No matter how Not Beautiful my produce is, though, there is NOTHING that can compare to that first burst of real home-grown tomato flavor each summer!

final version of watercolor of veggies

“Tuesday Harvest”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

The sketch/painting above was spur of the moment, made a couple of days ago in my standard white sketchbook while slurping the bounty of the first harvest.  The lemon cukes are seedy, yes.  The tomato skins are tough, and there’s a bit of blossom-end-rot, but nothing a good paring knife can’t take care of.  I admit I got a little carried away with the splatter technique here, but the idea was to convey how juicy it all was. Possible alternative title: Ugly Duckling Harvest!

Painting of cucumbers and tomato

“Thursday Harvest”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

Now this is more like it!  Whatever that means in terms of art…  more like what I had in mind, I suppose.  A more careful composition, more thoughtful execution, more attention to detail. The grey toned paper in this sketchbook makes the highlights really pop! The veggies are just as scrawny and misshapen, but they are just as much fun to paint, and just as tasty as if they were blue ribbon winners at the county fair!