Japanese plums, or loquats, are a part of life in New Orleans — if you’re in the know. Many who have these trees in their yard don’t realize the treasure that they have. Once a year during the spring the fruit of these trees ripens for about 2-3 weeks. They are sweet and tart and so good right off of the tree, but don’t survive long when picked, so they aren’t found in groceries and markets. If you’re not lucky enough to have a tree your only option is to roam the neighborhood looking for trees with fruit hanging low enough that you can grab a few... or more than a few if you’re feeling daring. As a kid in New Orleans East my friends and I spent many warm afternoons climbing strangers’ trees, filling paper sacks as quickly as we could before they came out to run us off. 

While this piece stays close to the idea of a limited color palette, the “blur” effect of the background created a myriad of color overlaps and combinations. Using no blending, washes, or overlapping colors on the canvas, each color was mixed in true OCD form, with each intersecting color being a 50/50 mix of the two adjacent colors, mixed individually on my palette, applied directly on the bare white canvas. It was a painstaking process to stay true to the effect while ensuring that the edges appeared seamless, but it is interesting to watch as viewers “discover” the contrast between the elements in the foreground with their sharp outlines, and the fruit and leaves of the background which appear out of focus.