When we built our house about 16 years ago one of the first things we did was plant trees. Israel has a scarcity of water so we did not install an irrigation system. We hand-watered the trees with a bucket to get them started and after that they were on their own. Apart from an annual pruning they take care of themselves. We are not big believers in insecticide sprays so although our trees produce lush fruit most years we have to compete with the ants and wasps to actually get to eat the fruit.
Peaches
In the front yard we have a peach tree – when it was small it was quite prolific giving a few large peaches every year. However after a few years the ants discovered the tree and now the peaches, which look so luscious, are riddled inside with ant holes and are very reminiscent of James’ giant peach. The bougainvillea has grown up near it and it probably lacks sunlight these days. The pruner guy keeps wanting to chop it down but I won’t let him. One year we photographed some peaches and my son, 13 at the time, and I had a paint-a-thon.
We both used the bar mitzvah acrylic paint . My son’s is a 25cm x 30cm canvas board and mine a 50cm x 70cm stretched canvas. His took an hour or so, mine took several weeks. I wanted to capture the velvety texture of the skin on the darker peach. I used repeated white washes over the maroon. My son captured it without all that effort. It was certainly a lot of fun painting the same subject together and made me feel less guilty about using up his paints. I was so proud of my effort that it is hanging on the kitchen wall.
Plums
One of the other trees we planted was a red plum tree. Every year it treats our front yard to an amazing show of white blossoms. Some years the fruit is prolific and some years less so. The main competition for the plums are wasps. They prick the skin and lay eggs in the fruit as soon as it is ripe enough. The idea is to beat the wasps to it, but it’s tricky – too soon and the fruit is tart, too late and the juicy plums turn wormy on the tree or in the bowl. The alternative is to spray the tree with nasty sulfur-smelling compound year after year. I like plums but not that much. Nevertheless, just like peaches, plums are a sensual-looking fruit, all cheeks and crevasses.
I used a thin acrylic wash for the back-ground then colored the plums with wax crayon. I did this in order to hurry the process along. I am very unhappy with the top plum on the right. Crayon can’t be erased as easily as paint. This picture is tucked away where no-one can see it. I am sorry though because I think I nailed the transparency of the bowl, even if the shape is off.
The plums were another paint-a-thon effort, this time with my foster son who was only 7 at the time. I recall that his first stroke was a big mistake across the bottom of the canvass and there were tears until I taught him that all things can be undone with white paint. I showed him how use a light yellow brush to paint the shapes and talked him through mixing the colors until he was happy with them. We both used 25cm x 30 cm cardboard canvases.
I think that his resulting effort is effort is amazing. He was also pretty chuffed with it. When he visits he always asks to see his painting. I am so happy to see that in the years since his return to his birth mother he continues to draw and paint. He does so with boldness and confidence and stunningly colorful compositions. His uncle is a talented sketch artist, so he has encouragement from a different quarter these days and is learning shading & smudging.
