In her softly lit atelier, (NØ) carries the weight of a season’s offering: pumpkins, swelled by the summer’s sun, grown by her father in the quiet hum of his garden. A ritual rises—sketching these hollowed forms, filling them with ink, pastel, watercolor, crayon, turning earthy gourds into living poems. Through each drawing, she listens—not just to what the pumpkin is, but to what it holds: memory, nourishment, a midnight whisper of Halloween.
Wash of Light
She begins with watercolors, hue drifting across the flesh of the pumpkin like dawn gently brushing the earth. The pigments pool in its creases and curves, glowing as if lit from within—sepia, ochre, soft russet—suggesting both harvest and hearth. The pigment settles, carrying with it the quiet reverence of a vegetable that has lived, ripened, been plucked from soil, carried into home.
Dust of Autumn
Pastels follow: chalky dust settles in the hollows, accentuating the gentle ribbing of the rind. Her fingers, stained faintly, trace with tenderness: rose whispering along a curve, amber blossoming in a hollow. The strokes are soft breathing, a caress that brings forth the pumpkin’s eyelids, its secret softness. Through pastel, the vegetable exhales color.
Memory in Line
Then come crayons—crisp lines of pumpkin-orange, deep forest green, a bite of charcoal for shadow. Each waxy trail presses into paper with an echo of the ridged flesh. She outlines not just shape but substance: this is a pumpkin that carried sunlight, soil, memory. The crayon’s weight summons its presence—solid, rooted, warm.
Seasons Held
A flip‑through of the sketchbook follows, and the pages whisper themselves: a progression through media, through seasons, through memory. One page glows with translucent wash, another hums with pastel breath, the next bites with crayon detail. And between them, the spaces—white, still—hold what’s never drawn: the scent of earth, the memory of summer’s hands, her father’s careful tending.
Draw What Grew, Hold What Passed
Let your lines become offerings. Sketch the food you love, the garden’s gift, the vessel of memory. Share your own drawing of something grown, something hollowed, something filled—with color, with feeling, with story.
Stay tuned for the upcoming recipe…
