She’s a beaut, isn’t she? There’s something very visceral and dynamic about a pomegranate. I had been thinking about this piece for a long time. I had originally thought I would have it be a black ink only print with watercolor overlay, but then I thought about the vibrant red color that you see when you crack one open. Two-tone seemed like the best way to go.

For this particular print, I did a composite of a number of different google-searched pictures. I knew I wanted to show a cross-section and couple broken-out segments. Unlike other prints, I didn’t need to generate a mirror image since it would be a composite of many images.

Since this is a two-tone print, I had to think about the layers of color. The first cut would be to block out all the red and black pieces. You can see in the sketch that I’ve brought a certain elements seen in the google search pieces above. Also good to note that I don’t really need to put in a lot of detail at the moment, since that will come in later in the second cut.

 

Here is the first cut. The highlights on the seeds I think begin to capture the essence of the pomegranate.

The red ink just looks lovely on the block, doesn’t it? One of things that I ended up liking the most about this piece ended up being the line work across the bottom.

 

 

Et voila. The first cut! See the line work? The right amount of noise. I also like the linework in the pith. The pomegranate just has so many different textures (the seeds, the skin, the pith, the shadows…).

 

 

Now, for the second cut. The second cut adds in the second color, in this case the black ink. In this instance, the black would help add structure (as an outline), shading (depth), and texture (background linework).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blank-ink only print looks pretty good too. Unlike other background linework (see Lobster: Anatomy of a Print), I quite like sense of depth and movement seen above.

Now, to put it all together. Look at that little bit of red poking through on the shadow of the larger segment.

Questions? Thoughts? Recipes that use pomegranates? Shoot me a message at writetolayne @ gmail dot com.