Curlycue Lemon Leaf

The lemon used in this drawing was given to me and my wife by our long-time neighbor, who brought it from her kid’s home in California! She toted it home on the plane, along with some oranges, not as a “thank you” for watching her house while she was out of town… she was just being neighborly! 

Before I cut into this fine fruit, I wanted to do a proper drawing, as I was struck by it’s slightly odd shape and the long stem with a single leaf still attached. If I didn’t know better I would have guessed this lemon was stolen, quickly yanked from the tree under the cover of darkness! 

I used four different pencils to get the proper shading – H, B, 2B, and 4B. For those of you who don’t draw, these are how darkness levels are rated on pencils. For this example, H is the lightest, 4B the darkest. You’ll notice the reference photo has the lemon perched on a glass, making you ask “what is that about?”. This was intentional, a matter of pragmatism so I didn’t have to hunch over for a proper viewing angle.

Lastly, I’ll point out that the focal point is… the leaf! It’s not only unusual to see the stem/leaf on a lemon still life, but it’s also a unique shape, probably a result of being slightly emaciated, causing it to curlycue rather abruptly. Hopefully you can tell it’s a leaf and the fact that it’s a bit oddball doesn’t detract from the overall composition. 

Cheers! 

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