Planal Fruit®

Hear from Kami about the process and ideation behind her tried-and-true teaching tool.

Designed to help you see color and form to grow your painting.  

My curiosity and bewilderment with color began at an early age. As a young child, I remember walking through the fields between home and my gramma’s house, eyes wide open, seeing the world in vivid color. I saw pinks in the grasses and purples in the sky and I asked, “how do I paint what I see?” My fascination with color has since developed into my life’s passion - to both study the properties of color and to pass along a process to help others learn to both see and paint the illusion of light and color in their paintings.

I remember an older wiser painter once telling me “98% of our job is teaching people how to SEE”. I began teaching over twenty years ago, and have worked with over one thousand students. During this time, I discovered that people learn best when they understand what they are seeing - that having a ‘what’ and a ‘why’ is vital to growing and learning. Humans are SO interesting; we need to LEARN how to SEE. Just think about that! Leonardo da Vinci discovered that ‘shadow is the absence of light’. He discovered that! It’s not like the day before he discovered this, shadows didn’t exist. He taught us how to SEE them. From that moment on, humans learned to SEE something that was always there, but first had to be taught.

FORM: The world is filled with form! Often times, a missing component for people studying light, is seeing and understanding form. Every tree, hill, cloud, cup, lemon, flower . . . all form! Form is three-dimensional, and is a vital component to painting light and color. So, what is form composed of? Planes! Every time there is a plane change, there is a color change and mastering the use of color with paint requires seeing it! 

PLANES: Teaching my students to see plane changes was challenging and frustrating at times. They struggled to see the plane changes I was talking about, and without seeing it, it’s very difficult to paint it. At the time, I found having my students paint pears was helpful, as it’s a fruit that naturally shows planes easier than other fruits. Yet, they still weren’t quite getting it. I thought to myself, “if only I could show them what I was seeing…’ One day it struck me “Ah ha! They needed a visual! Amplify the planes to help them SEE the planes.” In that moment, the idea of Planal Pears was born. Throughout these early years, I continued to attempt to sculpt the perfect Planal Pear and then worked for several more years creating multiple sets of both the Apples and then Lemons. I handcrafted dozens of each fruit so my classes could study from them in the studio.

PLANAL FRUIT®: I could hardly believe that nothing like this existed on the market. “Planal”, a play on the word, planar. My students now had a visual example to study plane changes and their work was improving immensely, especially their color! By SEEING the planes and observing how each plane moved across and around the form, students now had something to study. They began seeing form in other objects, such as trees and flowers. The more we painted the Planal Fruit, the better their work became. My students began asking me to reproduce the fruit so they could study planes at home. Dreaming of someday, and bringing this request to fruition, was accelerated when the pieces were lost in a move. By no longer having the fruit, I discovered I couldn’t live without them! I realized how often I referred to them while teaching - they were vital to my student’s growth and understanding. Determined to develop a new set, I spent an entire summer sitting on my porch sculpting and baking new prototypes, until I had a perfect new set. Now, with all the years of experience using them, I knew exactly what purpose I wanted each fruit to serve and I finally got it!

The perfect Planal Apple, Lemon, and Pear.

Now that the original prototypes were complete, I knew it was time to bring together a team to help grow the project and make these available to more people.

THE TEAM AND OUR MISSION: There were three key roles that needed to be filled. One: someone to lead the project so I can continue to paint and teach. Two: someone to make high quality molds from my original prototypes, and Three: someone to fabricate or “harvest” each of the hand poured plaster fruit. I am so excited that I found them! Let me introduce you to my team!

Kami Mendlik: Painter, Educator, and Creator

Jennifer Nash Kochevar: Managing Director

Dana Miller Karr: Fabricator and Harvester

James Shoop: Sculptor and Mold Maker

BUSINESS PARTNER: I knew that I needed a partner - someone who could manage and direct the sales, marketing, business operations, and finances so that I could paint. In February 2023, Jen joined the team as Planal Fruit, LLC’s Managing Director.

PLASTER CASTS: Our sculptor James, began creating molds, from my original prototypes (fruit sculptures), for each piece of fruit and exploring various types of plaster. The use of plaster for the fruit is important to me because, along with its rich history and its sustainability, it produces a soft honed white finish. After several months of trials, we perfected the molds, chose the plaster, and were ready to move to the next step.

FABRICATOR: At this point, our fabricator, Dana, took a few months to work with the molds and plaster to learn the best way to pour each and every piece of fruit by hand, followed by touching up each piece. She is in charge of harvesting and boxing up each set of fruit for you. 

SMALL BUSINESS: It’s been important from the beginning that this company would support small businesses and craftspeople, use as much recycled packaging as possible, and keep the footprint small. Ultimately, we are providing you with a high-quality product that supports local small business people and is environmentally friendly.

Each life sized piece is poured by hand for you. The result is beautiful, soft, honed, natural white casted plaster fruit – a classic and timeless way to reproduce sculptures. It is lovely to paint!

We are excited to share with you, what I consider to be, the perfect and original Planal Fruit®!

Enjoy Learning and Growing!  Kami