Winter; time for loads of vitamin C. Kiwi’s, clementines, mandarins, oranges, clemenvillas, grapefruit, pomelo’s; each asking for their own way of eating. To practice working with the Schmincke paints some more, I used some oranges, cut in all the different ways I eat them.

When in a hurry, I roll an orange under my foot, cut a hole in the top and suck the juice loudly and slurpingly, until the opening cracks and forces you to tear it open completely and attack the remaining flesh with your teeth. Aftwards you have to lock yourself in the batroom with lengths of floss and a stack of toothpicks. I struggled with this sketch and I can’t even blame it on the paint…pure lack of skill! I can’t get away from having it look like a chamber pot. Done in pencil, pen and Schmincke WC and still using my handmade sketchbook from Marta.

An orange cut into quarters takes me back to my netball years, when a tray of orange quarters were passed around during halftime. I always played goal attack, which allowed me three quarters of the court to run and also shooting goals. Man, I was good!…except for those days when my goal shooting failed… Done in pencil, pen and Yarka WC in my handmade sketchbook.

My mother always peeled the orange with her sharp little knife and with me on her lap, she would cut round slices from the top…one for me, one for her, one for me… We would have a go at about four to six oranges this way. Hartman also peels an orange and when I move closer with some puppy-eyes, he might just hand me some broken off segments. Done in pencil, pen and Yarka WC in my handmade sketchbook.

And lastly, when I’m fancy and making a salad or dessert, I’ll cut them with my big knife – first slice off both top and bottom, then place the orange on one cut side and slice the peel off from top to bottom by following the contour of the orange,  turning it after each slice, making sure that you also slice off all the white pith. Take the peeled orange in your left hand and cut out each segment between the “skins”. Messy, but pretty. Done in pencil, pen and W&N WC in my handmade sketchbook.

EDIT: I received this comment from Desiree and want to share it with you:

“I used to roll them and suck out the juice too. When my kids were little I even had a contraption that fit inside the hole and was a straw to make it easier. I have eaten oranges in so many ways but there was this one time. It was after work, I was tired and hungry and all of us piled onto the train that took us home faster, passing all the traffic on the freeway. As I sat just zoning, being lulled into a commuter trance there was a women in the seat across from me, eating an orange. I found it really interesting, her style of eating this orange. It was cut into neat segments with the skin attached. She carefully ate the orange flesh and then proceeded to eat all of the white part next to the skin. She first nibbled at it then dragged it across her bottom teeth until the orange skin was the only thing left. It was so thin, it was almost transparent. She was neat, very careful but determined to not let one bit of that orange go to waste. She made me so hungry for an orange. I always eat the white part now, she made it look too good to pass up. This is also a good lesson on “We don’t really know all the people we influence!”

…So, how do you eat your orange?