Pumpkin Outing: now a tradition!

It is officially a tradition! If you do it three years in a row - right? Here are pumpkin outings to this particular place from 2023 and 2024.

So it is now a tradition to go check out one of the cutest pumpkin patches of the Bay Area - Cosentino Family Farm in San Jose (especially if you are more into finding many different kinds of pumpkins, gourds, and squashes than rides and hay mazes (I had that period too, but taking a break from the mazes and jumpy-houses at the moment). 

Suhita Shirodkar is the one who introduced me to this wonderful orchard and farm stand (and she teaches classes there every season! So if you are in the Bay area, it is a really double-win!). We went on a lovely sunny morning and got to draw pumpkins (and I even had time to try my hand at pomegranates!)

Gouache and mixed media in a Hahnemühle watercolor book.

It's Orange Season!

Pumpkin patches are all over the town! This particular one is in San Jose - CosentinoFamilyFarm. This is a farm stand and one of the last family-owned real orchards in the middle of Silicon Valley. Good people, good food and so many things to draw!

I managed to forget my sketchbook but was saved by a great friend who can decipher intelligent texts (@suhitasketch) - and here are two sketches celebrating a variety of colors and textures and the most orange season of all. Happy October to you!

Starting the Orange Season Early

I never could choose which season I like the most because each of them has some amazing things happening :) But for someone whose color palette always has to contain some version of orange color, fall is a special time of the year :)
I recently heard an interesting sentence while listening to a podcast interview with Mark Hearld: he said (about standing in a field in fall) that it is "one of the great color experiences of my year". I've been thinking about my personal set of "great color experiences of the year" ever since :) And fall is filled with them! Yet there are almost no hints that colors are going to change here in California (yet) but there are pumpkins everywhere!!!
So - I put on an orange shirt and went sketching with Suhita at a pumpkin patch at a local farm! Cosentino Family Farm is located in the middle of Silicon Valley and has been cared for by a lovely local family since 1945! They have some very tasty local fruit, an orchard where you can see how it grows, with people who care for it right next to it and they organize some interesting food events - you can learn more on their Instagram: CosentinoFamilyFarm.   

There was so much orange!!! I had to do another sketch and concentrate on greens :) Figeater beetles were circling us (I want to catch one now to draw!) as we packed up our sketching gear, picked some apples, and made plans to come back. 

October 2013: Pumpkin Patch

My favorite pumpkin patch is back in town - birds, mammals everywhere. Most of them are in the jumpers though - so I get to sit down and sketch these guys :)

Weekend Reportage

Grandpa's Pumpkin Patch:

Grandpa's Pumpkin Patch, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

Waiting under a tree, counting birds and airplanes.

Pirate-Themed birthday party in the park: