Donald Diddams
The Art of Digital Art
A Flower in the Magic Forest
Posted on June 1, 2009
Cannonball tree flower -2009
The cannonball tree is named for its heavy round fruit that grows on gnarled stems attached to the tree’s trunk (see photo below). The flowers are beautifully complex and colorful, with hues of red, orange, yellow and white – almost a world unto themselves. You can see a second interpretation of this flower on my web site.
This tree is a specimen at the St. George Village Botanical Garden on St. Croix, home to many strange and wonderful tropical plants. And no, the fruits are not edible. In fact they stink when they fall and crack open.
Cannonball tree fruit
The Irresistible Egg Fruit
Posted on January 13, 2009
There was this pile of bright yellow-orange egg fruit on a red table at St. Croix’s St. George Village Botanical Garden last summer. The jumble of shapes lit with an intense swath of sunlight across the front was irresistible. So I took it home with me.
Occasionally I will go to work immediately on a photograph to produce a final image. However, just as common is the months-long gestation that this one required. Several times I worked on it, was dissatisfied and put it away — only to bring it out later, delete a layer or two (a little like scraping the paint off?) and move forward. That start and stop process sometimes produces an image that is over-worked. But in other cases, it is the only way.
Egg fruit - 2009
The painting-a-day discipline of carrying a painting forward to completion each day is different from the luxury of allowing an idea to gestate, going back days later, and reconsidering the strokes of the brush (or in my case, the stylus). Not better or worse, but different. So does that different process lead to different results?
St. Croix — Hotel Caravelle Artwork
Mocko Jumbies
Donald Diddams 