EDM 176 - Draw summer

There are so many things that shout "summer" to me. Living in a winter country as I do, summer is short, sweet, and something that you wring every last drop out of. I even keep track of the "firsts" of every summer:

• first gin and tonic (because you can only drink G&Ts in the summer)
• first full day wearing flip flops (the day you don't have to start off wearing socks)
• first harvest of rhubarb
• first day you can drink morning coffee on the patio
• first cutting of the new grass
• first robin in the birdbath

But it's really watermelon that is the quintessential taste and smell of summer. I know that we can have watermelon all year long now, but when I was a kid we waited for summer to have watermelon. It was like the reward for surviving the six foot high snowdrifts. And the best part was when you went to the freezer and got the snowball that you made from those six foot drifts and stashed away in there last January, hoping your mom hadn't found it thrown it out. Eating watermelon and a snowball - yep, that says summer to me. I don't think I would enjoy summer nearly as much if I didn't have winter.


This is watercolor in the Moleskine watercolor journal. I wanted to experiment with gettting the sparkly texture of the watermelon, so I used lots of water to create blooms. It does give the effect of those slightly mushy parts of the melon. I think salt would have worked as well.