Day 17 - Magnolia grandiflora fruit

[vilakins]

I spent far too long on what was supposed to be a quick one, and I'm still not happy with it. This is one of the weird bright pink, hard and plastic-looking fruit our magnolia grandiflora came out with in April and May. I googled images and it seems we had very regular-shaped, beautiful examples. They're now on the ground looking like withered deflated black rugby balls. :-P

Magnolia grandiflora fruit

Done in Artrage, and not very well. The fruit is fine but the leaves are a mess.



My NaArMaMo 2011 Gallery is here; go up a level for the others.

Comments

[elmey]

The colors are great, that's actually a fruit? I don't know squat about magnolia leaves, I think of them as big shiny things, but I'm not even sure about that.

[vilakins]

I certainly wasn't going to taste it! Yeah, the leaves are shiny on one side, but I failed at that.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Your magnolia has much prettier fruit than ours. We have a magnolia stellata and I don't think it fruits properly. I think it doesn't get pollinated, so all we get are beige deflated rugby balls.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

when I googled to make sure it was grandiflora, I found most of the fruit was misshapen and paler. Only one really compared (http://blogs.scottarboretum.org/gardenseeds/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Magnolia-grandiflora-fruit-2.jpg). Mine started pale pink and got richer and brighter.

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

The only magnolia I have ever seen is white--in fact, magnolia is a synonym for a kind of creamy white at the paint store. This pink is beautiful. Your painting of it is very good.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

My flowers are that off-white colour, but lots of magnolias are pink. See my icon for the ones round the corner and very common here.

[luinielle.livejournal.com]

Beautiful drawing. I like your leaves - I think the shape, shading and texture are lovely.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Except that they're meant to be waxy and shiny! Ah well.

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

Oh I still like it! I like the leaves with the different shades of green and highlights.

I think you're too hard on your own work. You're much better than you give yourself credit for.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Well, they were meant to be waxy and shiny. I just gave up mucking round with them due to lack of time.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I have never seen magnolia fruit, simply magnolias only bloom here but nothing more. It is stunning!!!!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen them before this year either! quarryquest told me what the tree was as they have one at Kew.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Oh, very nice! I particularly like the leaf in the foreground.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's not bad as a leaf, but it doesn't have the waxy shiny look it's meant to.

[quabazaa.livejournal.com]

I love this, it's so vibrant! I'm not sure I've ever seen such a pretty magnolia flower :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's not a flower, it's a fruit (puzzling me greatly when I saw them appear), all hard and plastic-looking, starting off pale pink and getting brighter and richer. This was at its brightest. Here are googled photos of the things (http://www.google.com/search?q=grandiflora+magnolia+fruit&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=eja&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=HjtQTuTyN-X7mAWqxvW-Bg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAQ&biw=1240&bih=857). :-)

The tree (also called laurel magnolia) is evergreen and has rather boring white flowers, but round the corner on the street are two gorgeous ordinary magnolia trees in pink flower right now (see icon made from a previous naarmamo drawing).