Friday 12 April 2013

HAPPY ORANGES FOR A.P.R. - AND A BIT OF DOGGEREL TOO!



These three cheeky orange pals, with their orange leaf 'hair', are my first offering for the Artist's Play Room this week, on the theme of  'Fruit'.

In fact this is my 'Two for the price of One' week, because there is a painting with a different approach to the theme at the end of the post.

I drew the oranges with a Pitt Artist's pen and painted them with my trusty Inktense pencils.  I took them into Photoshop to experiment with different backgrounds, but everything I tried took away the graphic quality I like against the white background.


So I decided that they are three LEVITATING ORANGES.

How did I come up with the idea for this design?  Well looking at all the freshly bought fruit on our kitchen side table, my eyes were drawn to the oranges.  And they reminded me of childhood, when we used to do silly things with food (which was all right as long as we ate it afterwards).  I took photos to show you my starting point -


I cut out two wedge shapes, a largish one at the back and a smaller one on the front.  Then I took piles of photographs of them in different positions, and the ones in the collage were about the best.  You should be able to see where the smile and the teeth come from for my drawings.

This reminded me of another daft thing we did.  We would eat the orange from the wedge-shaped skin, and trim it to a size that would fit our mouths.  We then used a knife (no namby-pamby nonsense for us about kitchen safety in the olden days!) to slice a horizontal line almost through the pith, and vertical lines to shape 'teeth'.  Then we would stuff the 'false teeth' into our mouths and just act daft.

I did make a set of orange peel teeth yesterday and took a photo of myself wearing them, but it was ghastly and my beloved said I looked revolting, so I decided to save you the horror of seeing the photo.

So here are the Levitating Oranges again, together with their doodling doggerel:


WHEN FRIENDSHIP TURNS TO LOVE

Meet Hal, Hattie, Hugh, three sweet orange friends,
They've vowed to be buddies till life itself ends.

Now Hattie is loved by both Hugh and by Hal,
And each of them wants her for his special gal.

Hal gives her vacations, and chocolates to eat.
Hugh gives her rings, and 'Jim Choos' for her feet.

(Hattie hasn't got feet, but she does like nice shoes
And Hugh feels his gifts will help her to choose.)

Now Hattie's no dope, she piles on the soft soap,
And vows to each chap she will one day elope.

She tells Hugh, and then Hal, that she's ready to marry,
Then leaves and shacks up with a
lemon called Larry!

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That's enough silliness.  Here's my second offering for the APR 'Fruit' theme.


This was painted a while ago, but it seemed appropriate for the challenge.  It was painted using a 'wash-off' technique, with waterproof black ink and gouache.

Hope you enjoyed both the pictures and the post - I enjoyed every minute of doing them.

15 comments:

  1. This is so much fun and so "fruity" if that is a condition...I am sure that fruit secretly have personalities!

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  2. Dancing around with oranges in our mouths as teeth...yup remember it well! Love your 'bit of silliness' although you actually put a lot of research into your toothy oranges. I'm not quite sure why but one of them ( It must be Hattie )has the look of Cilla Black :) Lovely post as always Jez.

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    1. I'm glad to see there were others being daft with the orange peel teeth. I wonder if children still do it. Thank you for your comment - and for recognising that what seems like an off-the-cuff quick doodle does sometimes take quite a bit of preparatory work.

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  3. I LOVE Hal, Hattie and Hugh. I never imagined oranges had so much personality, and you captured it since the initial photographs you took. Your second offering is delightful too. Blessings!

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    1. Thanks for such a nice comment Arnoldo.

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  4. Love your oranges, great fun. We used to play with oranges like you too! Yeah I see Cilla Black there too!

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    1. Glad you played the teeth game too! Now that two of you see Cilla, I have looked carefully, and think it must be the one on the left?

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  5. I'm giggling over the surprise ending of your poem. It's always so fun to stop by.

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  6. What a fantastic idea! They say you can see faces in almost anything, just a simple cut in an orange and away you go. Fabulous love them!

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  7. those oranges are a riot!! love them. That Hattie is so coy... The actual pictures are funny too, I can see why you had to draw them up. I've been eyeing inktense pencils, I love the color you get with them. Love the orange sections below too.

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  8. Thank you Katie. I'll be thinking of you. Keep smiling!

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  9. NAUGHTY Hattie! Haha - that did make me laugh and I just love how you came up with their teethy grins.

    My Dad used to do that - he would appear behind us with a orangey grin, trying to make us jump :P

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  10. what a fun FUN post and I love all the giggles you gave me. your poeming is superb and so clever.
    thanks so much for bringing me smiles on this rainy Saturday afternoon.
    xoxo

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  11. LMAO!! How totally excellent! Your poem is so funny and the smiley oranges such wonderful whimsy. Your orange segments are beautifully detailed. Superb offering for Jenn's APR Jez :D Mo

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  12. Jez, I love, love, love those smiling oranges. They cracked me up. What a great idea. After seeing the pictures of the real oranges... I'll never see an orange in the same way. I'll have to check out the "mood" of an orange as I slice it.

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