Because I was the child of parents who came from more tropical regions of the world, the fruit I ate growing up were mango, papaya, bananas, pineapple, even fresh coconut and the machete would come out to break it apart. We did eat apples, oranges, and strawberries of course. But the apples were Red Delicious and they were not delicious. Best way to eat one of those was a wedge to hold peanut butter. Never blueberries, unless they were in my frozen blueberry waffles! Are those even blueberries? I didn’t grow up eating figs, other than Fig Newtons, which, let’s be honest, are not a good representation of the potential of a fig. But luckily as an adult I have had more opportunities to eat figs and it’s always so good. But I’ve never bought figs or prepared them myself. So when I got it into my head to paint figs, I honestly didn’t know what to do with them! I turned to search and basically it said to eat a fig, you wash it and eat it, skin and all. So easy. Kind of embarrassing that I didn’t know.
So I washed my fig, cut it, and put it on my studio table. And really enjoyed painting this small painting. I was able to finish it mostly in a day. So after I finished, I just popped them in my mouth and ate them. I was going to look up a recipe and make something with the figs and hopefully share here. But honestly a fig is really good just as is. The other day though I had baked figs stuffed with goat cheese served with prosciutto – it was heaven.
Anyway, why am I painting fruit? I think with my anxiety of mid term elections, I just need to look at fruit and lose myself in mixing colors and just staring at an object in front of me. Make things simple, don’t overthink. Paint the fruit, then eat the fruit.
I’ve been really enjoying this fruit painting kick I’m in.