It is here!  The first blog recap of the 2018 Fruit and Veggie Art Challenge!  6 letters and 12 weeks completed!  Wow.  This new theme has been quite fun and overall, for me at least, easier than the Alphabet Animal Art Challenge from last year. If this is the first time you are learning about the 2018 Alphabet Art Challenge I recommend reading this blog post first.

Also, a side note:  I have been struggling with what simple word to use when writing about my illustrations.  I have settled on the generic combo fruit/veg to try to make things as simple as possible 🙂

Let’s start with a look at the first 6 illustrations I created:

4 Veggies and 2 Fruits so far.  As I shared in the original blog post for this year’s theme, in addition to the Alphabet Fruits and Veggies I am also giving them all a “geometric” flare.  I am absolutely loving this twist on the theme as it frees me from trying to exactly recreate the fruit/veg I have chosen and gives me a bit of creative flexibility.  It is quite fun to choose my fruit/veg then think through the best way to geometrically create it.  In addition to the fruit/veg itself each illustration has a rectangle and hatching as part of the composition.  I added this for the first item, asparagus, to fill in the blank space and liked it so much I decided to make it a standard element for all the illustrations.  I think my favorite illustration this round is the Fennel, it was such a perfect fit for my geometric style.  Here is a closer look:

I also really like the carrot.  In fact, I have already made it into a repeating pattern and added it to my Spoonflower Shop!  I think this Geometric Carrots print would be especially fun for the kitchen!

I anticipate more patterns in the future and probably a few that incorporate more than one fruit/veg. Those will probably come closer to the end or after the challenge once I have an entire collection.

Probably the biggest challenge I have encountered so far is fitting the fruit/veg well on my template.  I really liked the framed square I used for the Alphabet Animal Art Challenge and definitely wanted to keep the square format for this year too, however, so far the fruit/vegs have been much more vertical than the animals. Had I thought of this before starting I might have tweaked the format of the squares.  This is another good reason to incorporate the background rectangles and sticks as they help to fill the space.

Like last year, I extended an invitation for other artists to join me in the challenge. Not sure if fruit/veg are less appealing than animals, or that others found it too difficulat to stick to a year long challenge, but participation is down from last year.  (Actually last year started strong and then eventually everyone except myself dropped out).  3 other artists started the year with me.  I wanted to give them a shout out because I loved that they joined in.  And since there are less options with fruit/veg there were often repeat picks which I think is quite fun.  You can see all our creations on Instagram via the hashtag for the challenge:  #2018fruitandveggieartchallenge.  You can also check out all of the artist’s individual feeds:  onecreativechameleon, deevlasak, and jillbyersdesign

Jill from jillbyersdesign is the only artist that has also completed every letter and I wanted to give her a special mention!  She is also using a consistent design style and I absolutely LOVE how her collection is coming together!!!  Her style is so different from mine which is super fun.  Painting is NOT my strength, but I have done it enough to really appreciate the gift in others.  Jill definitely has the gift.  Here are her first 6 fruit/veg paintings!

So gorgeous, right?  I highly recommend giving her a follow on Instagram.  You can also find more of her work on her website and in her own Spoonflower shop (which is how we “met” in the first place!)

Speaking of other participants… you could still join in if you wanted!  I think that the fruit/veg are so much faster to create you could easily catch up at this point.  Or simply start at the latest letter:  G!  I even create a prompt list for each letter to give you ideas.  Find the latest one here.

I think that about covers it all.  I would love to hear which fruit/veg is your favorite!  Or any other comments you may have 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Brenda