Tomatoes are one of my all-times favorite foods–as long as they’re not rotten or growing mold there isn’t much you can do to them that will make me not eat them.
My mother used to grow them in her garden, and getting to eat fresh tomatoes was one of the highlights of every summer. Until the squirrels discovered them.
See the thing is, the squirrels that lived in my parents’ neighborhood didn’t actually like tomatoes. We knew this because we’d find green tomatoes that the squirrels had taken off the vine, taken a single, disdainful bite out of, and then discarded. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the fluffy-tailed rats had any sort of long term memory, but no, they had to sample every single tomato that grew large enough to look promising. I would try to chase furred devils off, but all that got me was the educational experience of what “F*** YOU” looks/sounds like in squirrel.
Unlike the last two watercolors I’ve done for food Friday, I had to give in and use a second brush. I’ve been challenging myself to do these paintings as fast as possible–ideally spending only the time it takes to watch an episode of TV–in order to finish the paintings without getting too fussy about the details which I am VERY prone to do. So only using one brush that’s not too small is another way of keeping myself on task, but with this subject the seeds in the cut tomato needed to be included to keep the tomato recognizable. That is something to keep in mind when looking at art, always always always no matter how realistic the image is, at some point during creatiation the artist had to decide what to leave in and what to leave out.
The squirrels and the birds take bites out of tomatoes so they can drink the water. They are like natures drinking fountain to little critters. 🙂
Heh, that makes a lot of sense (I am the world’s worst gardener so didn’t know), but I’m still gonna fight for those tomatoes.