DANGER!!! Fruit inking in progress!!!

Well i have to say, that even with my history, i never expected that i would ever be involved in a mishap involving fruit!!! More on that later though........

I am posting this weeks episode of "Fruit i inked today!" from sunny Leeds. I am at my girlfriends house for the week, so she came with me to Leeds market to find this weeks subject. Lots to choose from, but two stuck out for me so this week i am treating you to not one but TWO inked fruit!

The first fruit i had a go at was not exactly the most interesting shape, very much like an apple in fact, however it was the colour that attracted me to it for inking reasons. My first fruit this week is the CHINESE PEAR!!!



The picture and computer screen does not do the colour of this fruit justice, but it was so light, it was almost white......a perfect blank canvas for inking.

I decided to do a standard dabbing and blending tachnique, and was really pleased with the result. Not the most exciting of colour effects, but i love the blended colours.

So that was the chinese pear, not a bad fruit to ink, lovely light colour to bring out the true colours of the ink, but despite looking forward to inking this fruit, i'm going to give it a fruitinkability rating of 3.

Now then, the fruit that almost became infamous for eliminating a fruit inker so early in his blossoming career! The second fruit i thought would be a great idea to ink.....and may i add was encouraged to get by Maddy, was the PRICKLY PEAR!!!



These pears apparently grow on cactus plants and usualy have long spines on them, however these ones had been removed prior to us buying them. No danger there then eh? Wrong!!!

I started inking the fruit as i usualy do, the effect was misbehaving slightly and i ended up getting the best effect from using purples and silver. However all of a sudden i started feeling pain in my hands! Thinking it was just me getting old, i carried on, however before long my fingers started to swell up, and i developed a rash like a severe netttle rash!

The pain was pretty intense and at it's worst my vision went a bit blurred and Maddy was on the verge of phoning the hospital, but luckily it only lasted a few hours. It turns out that this fruit has tiny hairlike spines also, which you pretty much cannot see.......but wow you can feel them!!!

I could'nt carry on with the second fruit, i was moaning too much with pain lol, but it was a learning curve......i learnt NOT to ink anything to do with a cactus again!!!

Maddy was an angel as usual, whilst i was in major pain, Maddy was finding out usefull things on the net like, "Ooh Calv......did you realise that they use this fruit to make the itchiest itching powder in the world?!". Really Maddy?!!! You don't say!!!!

Fruitinkability rating for this one......a 3 also, i reckon i could have achieved a 5 had i have been wearing gloves!

So not the best week for inking fruit i'm afraid. However, the next day i received a lovely gift in the post from Jennie from The Artistic Stamper.....a gift which would have saved me a lot of pain had it arrived a few hours earlier. Plastic fruit!!! Loads of it, so at some point i will possibly do a special inked plastic fruit to sign and give away as a prize here!!! Wow, ain't that something to get excited about!!! :)

Until next week......stay fruity!!!