David Johnson, Nectarine Peach, Watercolor on Paper, 11 1/4 X 8 1/4"

While working at a daily Bay Area newspaper, Dave became one of several go-to in-house illustrators, producing a wide range of original illustrations for the local news. When editorial wanted to supplement their Produce Picks articles with illustrations Dave happily took on the assignment.

When you're working at a job it takes a lot of energy. As much as I would like to come home and paint or get up in the morning and paint, you've got a dentist appointment, or you've got to get your kid to school. And there might be a week or two where you don't pick up a brush. And here's an assignment from the paper. Oh, I've got to paint onions. Right. An onion. And I'm just going to paint a beautiful onion. You take it as practice or try to make a beautiful thing. And even though in the paper it gets kind of muddy. If you're really lucky the registration is perfect and the color balance is right, and they happen to get a really nice roll of newsprint that day. Sometimes they come out nice, but most of the time they come out a little bit off, which, you know, it's okay. But I also would try to render it in a way that was interesting. - D.J.