Sketchy Veggies (Ongoing, 2018-Present)

Sketchy Veggies

During 2018 I focused a lot of time on refining my skills by diving into textbooks, and applying theory to practice (as seen in the Daily Logo Challenge*). To get me out of the house, I was invited along to one of the local craft group gatherings. It presented a new environment, a set time once a week to work on something away from the all encompassing desktop and looming threat of job applications, social media and other distractions.

One week I just started playing around with Procreate – messing with different brushes, toying with textures. And finding myself missing the life drawing studio classes we’d had at uni, set about trying to recreate those sessions within my own limits and interests.

So I started drawing vegetables. Why vegetables? I don’t know. But there’s probably more than a little influence seeping through from the Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley games.

I really started playing with textures and charcoal brushes while working on the artichoke, but it always surprises me when I am reminded it was actually the sugar snap peas that were the first of the Sketchy Veggies. Both of them came together sufficiently quickly, that I set myself a goal after the meeting – doing one a day would give me seven veggies after a week. Something small, yet fun. And something that went back to basics.

It could have ended here – beans, sugar snap peas, broccoli, zucchini, asparagus, artichoke and bok choy.

But you know it didn’t.

Showtime (2018)

Coming off the back of the much more detailed bok choy illustration, last of the seven Greens series pieces, the purple cabbage combined challenging textures such as the leaf veins and water droplets on the reference image. In comparison to the Greens which came together within a week, the purple cabbage took that long and more, and it turned into a rush to try and get it finished in time to submit to the Melbourne Royal Show’s Art, Craft & Cookery competition, Tablet Art division.

Despite the last minute entry, “Eat your Greens” came second!

The rest of the purples were completed in the time between submission drop offs for the Melbourne show (September) and pick up of artwork (early October). The project continued into the new year, 2019 bearing groups of Orange and Red fruit and vegetables. Somewhere along the line my intention to just draw the vegetables shifted to focus on creating linework that was still identifiable as each fruit or vegetable on their own, without having to rely on colour to do the work for me.

Plan? What Plan? (2020-2021)

In 2020, I finally sat down to try and work out a plan of attack for future extensions of the project; gathering reference images for remaining colour groups, and the first overview image for the colour group sets; Yellows, Blues, Brown veggies and White veggies.

Slowly throughout the rest of 2020 and 2021 I made my way through the Yellow and Blue veggies sets, bringing the total of vegetable colour groups to six and a grand total of 42 different fruit and vegetables.

Experiment, Evolve, Exhibit (2022)

With so many fruits and vegetables to play with, 2022 turned into a year of experimentation. I tried out Red Bubble’s notebooks, only to be extremely disappointed at the physical size of the books that arrived (as well as the binding). I played with a short run of 80x125mm stickers, as well as a run of A5 prints that included a full print of the veggies artwork that had been used on the notebooks.

And after a period of not exhibiting, discovering that the 2022 Melbourne Royal Show was celebrating Agricultural milestones, I was convinced to challenge myself and prepare a new submission for a different, and much bigger competition category – Still Life 2D Artwork.

There was some fear about submitting for what was, typically, a very traditional category. And the work was done digitally, but with pencil and charcoal brushes that made people question whether it was traditional or digital. The schedule information for Still Life said “Any medium, including mixed media”, and at that point the worst thing they could say is “no”. So I set about working out the dimensions, composition, and then realised a small problem.

Eat Your Greens never had a fruit.

Every other set more or less had a fruit – Oranges had 4, Reds had 5, Yellows had 4, and while Purples didn’t have any explicitly, at least 2 of the 4 Blue fruits could pass for purple. So once again it was back to the drawing board; What green fruits were there? What was something I haven’t done before? Grapes were out – I’d just done a bundle for the blues. I still hadn’t done apples, but they seemed so simple and plain. But Kiwifruit. That fit the bill. In more ways than one. (At this point it was almost traditional to have at least one, stupidly complicated fruit or vegetable per set. Purple Cabbage, Cantelope/Rock Mellon, Lychee, Pineapple… and now, Kiwifruit)

All the pieces for my metaphorical chess board assembled, now it was time to set up the final piece. Heavily inspired by accent kitchen tiles, it became a rainbow of fruit and vegetables matched beautifully with a rustic wooden frame that pulled everything together nicely.

To my surprise, despite going into the show just wanting to get my work out there and seen, it came home with a Highly Commended award. Not a bad effort for dipping my toes into the larger art categories.

Long time no see (2024)

It took until 2024 for me to show Sketchy Veggies again, when I was made aware of a local regional show that was actively looking for submissions for its arts and crafts show, and encouraged to see if I had anything I wanted to submit. It was such a last minute throw together, I was shocked to walk into the exhibition and see one of the felt ribbons I had long associated with other agricultural show awards, draped over the framed Sketchy Veggies. They had done it again, this time coming away with Best In Show.

The idea of doing business cards with the Sketchy Veggies, as a kind of easter egg set had been something kicking around in the bowels of my brain for several years at this point. And finally it became a reality in the wake of the Holbrook show results and another Typism Summit focusing on marketing and business practice. One of those silly jobs that you spend forever putting off, but when you sit down to do it, it comes together quickly. Before too long, the cards were printed and I was sorting them into decks.

The cards were part one – I couldn’t properly start working on part 2 until I had a full deck on the proper paper stock to get my dimensions to build a dieline for a box to house the cards. The next stage was a combination of print house experience, and the years of building mockups of packaging. Getting the dimensions, setting up the artwork and getting it printed was the easy part. My scalpel hand did not appreciate cutting out and creasing multiple boxes.

I’m a Real Project now?! (2025)

And somehow, finally, in 2025 after 7 years of Sketchy Veggies, I finally sat down and made them a proper series logo. Something that after all this time felt right, in spite of many many past attempts to make something that clicked.