Still a bit too early to put these in as we’re still having the occasional overnight frost.
Maris Peer
Tag: Potato
Maris Bard
My right thumb is doing well – I’d sprained it with a marathon session of snipping back the ivy and hawthorn – but I’m still keen to practice drawing with my non-dominant left hand. These chitted Maris Bard first early seed potatoes are ideal subjects for my wobbly pen.
Tattie & Neeps
The Tattie & Neeps Mysteries and it looks as if our hard-boiled inspector and his rookie sidekick D.C. Neeps might have made a breakthrough in tracking down ‘Mr Big’.
Also known as ‘The Haggis’.
Yes, it’s birthday time again, and this is for Rob, a vegetarian ex-detective living on a Scottish Island. I think that I’ve discovered a demographic that even Moonpig and The Card Factory haven’t latched onto yet.
“Was D.I. Tattie one of the original ‘Peelers’?” asks Rob.
Maris Peer
We’re going for Maris Peer second earlies again this year but also trying some ‘ultra early’ Maris Bards. You have to buy them at this time of year as the popular varieties soon get picked over but we won’t be planting them until March or April, depending on the weather, so until then we’ll be chitting them: letting their shoots develop in a cool, light place (the back bedroom window sill).
Maris Peer
We’ve never had a better crop of potatoes than last year when we grew Maris Peer, a second early. They were versatile, heavy cropping and we didn’t have any waste because of blemishes or damage. We like their taste and texture; they never ‘boiled in the water’ and turned slushy. However, we were late buying them and our local garden centre had only these last few left, so we’ve also gone for some Maris Bard extra earlies.
This drawing took just over an hour and it’s unusual for me as it hasn’t been drawn on my iPad. It’s drawn with a dip pen with a John Heath’s Telephone Nib 0278 F and De Atramentis Black Document Ink in a Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbook. I enjoyed the feel of pen on paper again, so I’ll be doing a few more dip pen drawings.
Potato
Having the plant right there in front of me should make it easy but, like all flowers, this potato is a restless sitter.
It takes me longer than I think to get so far and I’m far from satisfied with the result but the end result isn’t really the point of the exercise;
‘You can only reproduce something well if you [see and observe]. If you can decode what you see, you will be able to explain it, and anyone who sees your drawing will be able to understand it. The artist’s view is just as important and personal as the subject itself.’
Agathe Haevermans, Drawing and Painting the Seashore
I’m happy just to spend the day observing and hopefully turning that into a successful botanical drawing will follow on from that.
In Impressionism by sampling spots of colour in a detached way, you should be able to build up a convincing image even of an object in the landscape that you can’t identify. Courbet was supposedly able to accurately paint a patch on a distant hillside without ever asking what it was – a limestone outcrop, a patch of dried vegetation or a pile of chippings. The colour and texture were enough.
With botanic drawing you’re really trying to deconstruct then reconstruct the subject in order to clearly explain it.
Perhaps I should have taken the flower apart before I started drawing.
Potato Flower
I take a break for coffee and when I return most of the flowers have closed up, so there’s an element of reconstruction in the watercolour.
Just the foliage to add now.
Potato in Pencil
Mr Atkinson, my maths teacher, saw me struggling with geometry and examined my pencil;
‘You could plant a potato with that, Bell!’
Sharpening up my act, this morning I’m drawing potato flowers with a 4H pencil, sharpened with a craft knife and honed to a point with an abrasive pad.
I don’t ever remember choosing a 4H for drawing but I’m taking advice from Agathe Haevermans’ The Art of Botanical Drawing and she often suggests starting out with a hard pencil. If you need to erase there’s less risk of damaging the surface of the paper because the harder lead stays on the surface.
For white flowers like these she suggests erasing almost to the point where your outlines become invisible, so that you don’t get pencil lines showing through your wash.
This variety of second early potato is Vivaldi and, by coincidence when I started this drawing they were playing Vivaldi’s Concerto in B Flat on Radio 3.
The Eyes of the Potato
I’VE DRAWN these Desirée red maincrop potatoes with a size no. 111 Tower Pen nib that I used when I drew my new art-bag the other day in non-waterproof ink; a sepia calligraphy writing ink from the Manuscript Pen company of Highley, Shrophshire. This flows more smoothly than Indian ink but the disadvantage is that I don’t now have the option of adding a watercolour wash to my drawing – not unless I’m prepared to see my line-work run unpredictably into the watercolour, which in this case is not the effect that I’m after.
I’m in a mood where I yearn for a bit of inky precision in my life after what has often seemed like a long nebulous period.
Chitting
I’m chitting these Desirées; this involves leaving the tubers in a light, airy but not too warm place to encourage the growth of sturdy new sprouts from the eyes of the potato. While this isn’t essential for a maincrop variety it is a way of celebrating the stirring of new life and the welcome return of spring.