I have just finished the first in my series of Unappreciated Vegetable posters to be included in my new Etsy shop The Curious Kitchen. I began with the leek because it is one of my personal favorites. I never had leeks growing up and rarely see them at a dinner table here in the U.S. I only became acquainted with it's  delicate flavor during my stay in France as an au pair. It just makes such an adorable vegetable person with it's jaunty leaves that can make it so expressive. Usually when I am painting this type of illustration I use gouache but this time I decided to go with watercolor. I love the richness watercolor has on good paper and I found that I liked the variable transparency that doesn't occur with gouache. I began by outlining them with a crow quill pen and india ink but then switched to a Staedtler Pigment Pen because the crow quill was catching on the texture of the watercolor paper. I also decided to hand paint the lettering to give it a more handmade look. I did use the font Apple Casual for the body of the text and then wrote it out myself using a light box so it wouldn't be so uniform. I also loosely used a delightful font called Honey Bee for the title because it had a whimsy about it that I thought was perfect . I am working on the next installments that may just be about brussels sprouts and of course parsnips. So many delicious vegetables to be explored!