Tomatoes (showing process)

Tomatoes, Moleskine sketchpad 5.5" x 3.5"

I have a small private group over at Facebook where we decided to put up a list of topics to draw weekly, just to get folks moving again. This week we're supposed to draw or paint something you find on the kitchen counter or dining room table. These lovely tomatoes were right there at hand, so I plunked them on the dining room table.

I knew I wanted them to go out of the frame on three sides, but I started drawing without much planning. As I got further along I realized that there was a lot of information in this very small space! Frankly, I started to get tired of all that drawing, so despite the fact that I usually blend my pencil drawings far more, I decided to leave it relatively unfinished looking this time. I carried it to slightly more finish on the right side, less so on the left, as you can see. As a result, you get a peek into my process. I do a lot of cross-hatching followed by blending, both with my ring finger and with a Q-tip cotton swab, and I clean up edges with my kneadable eraser and use it to pull out highlights.

Favorite part: the leaves around the stem on the far-right, front tomato. I like the way they curl and that I caught the light inside two of them.