I haven’t picked up any new fruit at the fruit stand recently, but that’s ok. My powers of observation are trained on the fruit I currently have, in all its (former) glory.

Have you ever wondered about the stages a grape goes through to become a raisin? What does it look like in its intermediate grape-raisin state? If I were Erwin Schrödinger, and put the grape in a box and waited a period of time, there would be no intermediate state: it would be a grape and a raisin at the same time.

But I digress…

Today’s study

The advantage of having the same fruit around for a while means that one can see what happens as it ages. Shapes and textures change as do colors.

In the study below, I sketched the same half-eaten dragonfruit I painted the other day. The colors are becoming brownish as the water evaporates, the scooped-out half is shrinking, since there is no pulp inside to maintain its shape. The texture and color of the pulp remaining in other half of the dragonfruit is changing as well. The surface is more concave than it was when it was freshly cut. The leaves are shrinking and becoming somewhat crispy.

Aging Dragonfruit
9″x12″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper

For reference, other dragonfruit sketches of this same dragonfruit may be found on these posts: Single Dragonfruit, Symmetry, Dragonfruit Unchained, Dragonfruitus Resumptus.

Hopefully, tomorrow will see a leaf study based on Paul Klee’s lesson plan. If not, perhaps the shriveling Dragonfruit will reveal further changes.