Love at first bite
I look forward to going huckleberry picking every year. Living in the Inland Northwest has given me the privilege of enjoying these berries every year. Climb up the mountain and taste just one, and you will be hooked for life! They are a divine, sweet, and tart taste that can only be understood by experiencing the flavor, yourself. There is no better berry on the planet, they taste so darn good! Literally, it is a shame that huckleberries are not able to be grown commercially.
privilege |ˈpriv(ə)lij|
noun
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people: education is a right, not a privilege | he has been accustomed all his life to wealth and privilege.
Huckleberry Know-How
Do you know your edible wild berries?
Lately, many thoughts of these berries have resulted in me doing a series of studies in the studio. I thought I’d share some recent watercolors of these magical fruit delicacies with you. Grabbing two small pieces of left-over 300lb Arches watercolor paper measuring 6″ x 5″. I draw close-ups of bunches of berries, showing how they look when I go to pick them. Then, using mastic to reserve light areas, I begin experimenting.
Huckleberries
These berries are dark smooth little guys with a gorgeous purple color that sometimes shows as magenta in the sun or almost black in shade. Noticeably, they have a very unique bottom that is a little dimple inward with a dot in the middle.
Lighting and colors vary a lot for these bushes under the big trees of the forest. Consequently, I try backgrounds in different values and colors. Sometimes, we are in bright sunlit blue-sky areas where the green leaves almost look chartreuse in color. Here, the background is dark when the look of the brown ground kind of mixes into the leaf color.