“The greater the
obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”
Molière
Finding time to paint and blog at this time of year isn’t
easy! So when I came across a box of peculiar prickly things in Dublin's Fruit and Vegetable Market, I knew that these odd looking things would be
the perfect subject. They wouldn’t
wilt or fade overnight, and they were just so bizarre that they had to be painted.Thanks
to some clever botanical detective work by some friends (thank you guys), I
found out that they were types of wild cucumber.
And so the fun begins.
Depicting the prickles was my biggest problem with these
little cucurbits. There are a number of ways to do this. I could paint
carefully around each one, but that would be pushing my patience and skills to
the very limit! I could also paint the skin without the prickles and then try
to lift the paint back off. I could
paint the skin and then add the prickles using opaque gouache. Or I could take
the easy option and mask off the prickles first.
