Sun Take 3 progress, and some Journals

Well this will probably be (for me anyway) a relatively short post. Above is the current status of my third try with my sun design. Note that I have darkened the background significantly with an olive green. I went back to the lighter lime green in the ribbons while leaving the center and the purple alone. I like how the center design and lime green pops against the background, while the purple is still dark enough to also show up.

I have a bit of tweaking left to do, but I think this will be the final version

Below is a scan of an interim step, I had darken the ribbon green a bit and added an overlay of yellow to the gray.

It is OK, but obviously I wasn't satisfied with it. Not sure why I picked the olive green, but once I started adding it to the background I decided that was the way I wanted to go. Then I needed to lift out some of the brighter green and redo the lime green. Both greens show up darker in the scan than they are in real life.

I think I need to live with this for a bit, before deciding how I actually like it.

Below are a couple of pages from my Nature Journal:

These drawings are from my Monday visit to Daniel Webster and North River in Marshfield, MA. I drew the log in the pond at Daniel Webster for the third time. The water level in the pond was as high as I have ever seen it and I wanted to document it. There were about 4 or 5 painted turtles all sharing the same log and catching some sun.

Otherwise nothing particularly to note, no new birds (for me) but the mosquitoes are viscous. I am beginning to look forward to the first hard frost.  Esp. as here in MA there is the concern about 2 diseases, West Nile and Triple E, Triple E is by far the worse of the two carried by mosquitoes, but West Nile can be no fun. I do use bug spray and thankfully haven't been bitten yet, but they do sometimes swarm a bit so are a concern.

The drawing of the trees is from North River, note the stone wall in the background. My problem with the leaf and the trees is that I am not sure what they are. The nearest I can come is some kind of Cherry. I think they are Choke Cherry trees, but only spring will really verify that for me. I know what the Choke Cherry flowers look like, even if I am not sure about the leaves or the bark. It is too late for the berries, which I just realized are very eatable, not just by birds and animals but by people.

When I was a kid living in Ill. we had a Choke Cherry tree in the front yard. I am positive that I was told then that the berries were poisonous. Though perhaps I was just told they were bitter and I made an assumption. During my research I recently learned that the Native Americans would crush the whole berry eating pit and flesh together, it was a valuable food crop for them.

The pages below are from my visit to Blue Hill Reservation on Tuesday Afternoon.

The top sketch is of the bird feeder area at the Trailside Museum location. The feeders were busy with Titmice, sparrows and some Chickadees. Over by the pond area the chipmunks were out in force collecting scattered duck food and maple seeds. I was able to make a few good photographs of the chipmunks, though they move so quickly I also made quite a few blurry ones.

The leaves are from trees around the parking lots. The maple is from a large Silver Maple located in the north lot, while the Black Locus leaf is from the lower lot along the roadside.

One last photo:

These pretty red leaves belong to a poison ivy plant. Needless to say I just photograph and don't touch these, though I am not sure how much of the chemical that most folks are allergic to is left in them when they are changing colors.

That is it for today. Comments are welcome.

Mushroom Progress, Journal, and a Figure

Thought you might like to see the work in progress on the mushrooms. I have added a violet/purple for the shadows. Some of the shadows have had brown or yellow overlaid on the purple, which actually grays the purple and darkens it. Amazing how just a bit of a darker color to indicate shadows can really give the illusion of depth. I am pleased with how this is working so far, but need to do more foreground and background work. I also added a bit more color to some of the mushroom tops

Below find a Journal Page from my visit to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, MA.

I visited this park for the first time last week. According to the history of the park they have up on a placard it is a fairly young park. Only created in the 1970's when the land was purchased from the Military who had used the site for munitions. The park has lots of camping sites off numerous small roads. Not sure I will be going back any time soon, as it is mostly wooded with fairly young trees, not my favorite walking grounds. Oh, it was named for an Indian Chief who deeded most of the lands that are now in Hingham and other south shore communities to the English Settlers in 1665.

The drawings above are of a couple of leaves, top one is an American Beech. The woods in the park are full of these smooth gray barked trees. The second leaf is a Sassafras leaf, a semi common tree in the woods here in MA. The tree I picked this leaf from was growing beside a roadway. On the bushes underneath it I spied a couple of interesting insects. One was rather large and green, I believe it was a False Katydid. I did make photographs, but they really don't show the insect well so I won't inflict them on you. For the other check out the photo at the bottom of this post.

The last sketch is of the building that covers the faucets for Mt. Blue Spring, a covered spring of fresh water that is safe to drink. The water is free to visitors. Open springs in MA are not safe to drink from, unless the water is boiled.

Below is last nights figure drawing.

I am much happier with how last nights drawing session went. The pose was a bit tricky but I rather like the finished piece. We didn't have a very large group last night, but that is OK with me, I enjoyed the session anyway.

Below is my photograph for today:

A beetle of some sort, I really liked the colors which are what first caught my eye. I have no clue what it is or even might be. There are so many types of beetles that my casual search wasn't able to come up with a name for this one.

That is it for today. Comments are welcome.

Sept. Progress Update

Sun Take 3 isn't finished but I wanted to post an update today. The background esp. needs more work. I am thinking about overlaying an entirely different color, hopefully something that will make that lime green stand out more. If I don't manage that I may overlay the green with a darker color to make it more apparent.  I am also not sure if this is right side up, it may be upside down or sideways.

Below is another scan of  a work in progress:

I have started the fills on the 2nd version my leaf pattern. Got sidetracked with other things so I haven't made as much progress here as I would have preferred.

On a slightly different note, I was prodded by a question about the focal point of first version of these leaves to look at the finished work in gray scale. Oops, turns out the outer blue and the bottom yellow orange have almost the same value. And while the red really pops to the non-color blind, its value in gray scale isn't as dark as I expected. All in all it was apparent to me that the over all balance of the piece doesn't work without color. Not sure all of this is totally relevant but it is something for me to think about while working on this new version.

Below is my Journal page from Monday's visit to the Daniel Webster Audubon Site:

More leaves, the top leaf above is from a White Birch that turned out to be an import from Europe. I don't mean these exact trees I mean the species. They do make lovely ornamental trees for the yard so at some point trees (or seeds) were brought to America and planted around homes. The seeds escaped as seeds often do and now they can be found growing where they weren't planted.

The leaf below that is a red maple, a tree which will grow in swampy ground. Since most of Daniel Webster was a farm in the past there are only a few stands of trees on the property. These stands tend to be in swampy areas not suitable for farming, so the presence of the Red Maples is no surprise. The young red maples have lovely smooth grayish bark, a way to identify them from other maples.

As fall has just officially started I am trying to capture as many leaves as I can before they disappear from the trees until next spring. I am finding them quite interesting to draw, each so similar but so different.

The top drawing is of a type of bedstraw, not really sure the variety, there are a lot of different ones. This one has little white flowers with 4 petals, and leaves in whorls of 4. There were lots of these plants growing beside the mowed paths. This is an unobtrusive plant, so the drawing isn't very elaborate.

A last photo for today:

The above was made at Daniel Webster this past Monday, and is of some of the European White Birch trees that my leaf came from.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

WIPS, Journal Page, and Figure Dwg.

These first two images aren't very exciting right now, but I wanted to post them anyway. They can give you a glimpse into how I go about making some of my art.

The above drawing is my 2nd take on the leaf design I created a couple of weeks ago. This will be a larger work about 7 x 9 inches for drawing area. So far all I have done is trace in the leaf pattern and outline it with ink. Will probably start inking areas today.

The rather faded image below is Take 3 on the sun design I was working with last month. This is actually smaller then the first two works, only 6 inches square. The light marks are still just pencil as I design the elements I want to add to the sun.

Sorry the pencil is so light, but I don't want to add ink until I am sure I want to go this way with this. The sun is already inked.

Below is my field page from an outing I made Saturday to Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA.

I visited this park for only the second time on Saturday. I really don't know a lot about this park other than the lake is man made and there is no swimming only fishing and some boating (no motors). The trees seem to be consistently young so I am guessing that it hasn't been a park for very long. The write ups I can find on-line for this park don't give any history or even a date when it was established.

My drawings are of the group gather shelter (worked on by a Eagle Scout troop) which is near the lake but not on it, and of some Wintergreen plants. Wintergreen is another of the common ground covers found in our local woods. The glossy oval leaves will stay green all winter. Both the leaves and berries when crushed give off the scent of wintergreen.

I got a bit, well lost isn't the correct term, but confused might work, not knowing that the trails don't go around the lake, I tried to do just that and ended up making a much longer visit and walk than I intended. My knees are still recovering.

Below is my figure drawing from last nights session.

Not much so say, I wasn't in good form last night, and spent way too long trying to get all the parts in the right place and in the right relationship. The eraser really got a work out, and there are areas I am still not sure about.  I seem to be struggling a bit with my figure drawing these past couple of weeks. I know I just have to continue working on it and hopefully things will work out. Rough patches are part of creating art.

I am leaving you with one last image.

The photo above is a rocky outcrop I came across in Ames Nowell. This is a fairly typical formation for this part of the country. Rocks are far too common in fields, which is why the early settlers built stone walls. The lake is just on the other side of this outcrop. Notice how young the trees are, fairly typical for many areas in the park. I would guess that not that long ago this was once all open farmland.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.

Fall Leaves Finished

Above is the final version of Fall Leaves, color is colored pencils, at least two different colors for each color you see above. In each area I would lay in one color then lay a second color over it. I think it gives the colors more depth then just trying to use a single colored pencil. Layering the colors has given the original more vibrancy which the scan lacks.

I think I like this, and am thinking that a slightly larger work which is more rectangular might be interesting. Something to explore if/when I feel the need for a new project.

Below is a scan of the current status of the mushrooms:

Sorry that it looks so light, but that is about where it is. I have transferred the shapes to my final paper and have started laying in the mushroom colors. I used red/orange as the transfer color so I won't have to fight any graphite on this. There is graphite marking the outer edges but I have lightened it a lot and will lighten it some more before I finish. The paper looks a bit orange here, it isn't actually, I am using cream colored  Stonehenge for this drawing. More of my exploring the various Stonehenge papers.

Below are a couple more of my Journal pages:

The above page is from a visit to my local city park. Field Park in Brockton, MA is the home of the city's water reservoir. This summer has been good rain wise so the water levels are actually high enough that water is flowing over the spillways. I have seen years where that wasn't true.  I have really spent a lot of time in this park, esp. with the camera, though this is the first time I have written about it in the Journal. It is a popular place to walk and to feed the water fowl.

Images are of a Northern Red Oak leaf that I plucked from a tree. It is similar to the Black oak leaf I drew in another journal entry, it has more tips so it looks more jagged. The second drawing is of a youngish gull. It was the lone gull in a mix of ducks and Canada Geese being feed at one of the lower ponds. Not totally pleased with how this came out, but it will have to do. The gull still had a lot of brown in its feathers. As it ages they will turn white with some grey, I believe this is a Herring Gull.

Yesterday I went back down to Massasoit State Park. They have a cranberry bog right next to the park, and though I really couldn't get a good photo the bog looks to be full of cranberries. I expect the growers will have a good harvest this year.

The images from yesterday are a Sweetgum leaf at the top and a couple of different views of a ground cover called Partridge berry. The Sweetgum tree is a bit odd to find in the Park as we are really north of its usual growing range. Still the south shore winters aren't as cold as the rest of the State and from the size of this tree it has obviously adapted very well. Since it located in the Park entrance area I am guessing that the tree was planted and wasn't a volunteer.

The bottom drawing is actually two different views of a low ground cover plant called Partridge Berry which at this time of year has red berries. They are very pretty against the glossy green leaves. The first view is from the ground, while the second is from directly above looking down on the plants. They tend to congregate together and form a mat covering the ground. It is a native plant that has been transferred to the garden because it stays green through the winter.

The last image today is of Jerusalem Artichokes in bloom. This native sunflower is known for it tall yellow flowers and its eatable roots. I made this photo at Rico Lake in Massasoit State Park.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are always welcome.

Mushrooms and Journals

Above is the initial pencil drawing I did of the mushrooms I photographed in Great Blue Hill's Reservation last week. Not a bad design but not wonderful either, very ordinary with the clump in the center of the drawing.

Below is the actual photograph I was working from.

I wish I could figure out what these mushrooms are, but there are various yellow/orange mushrooms that grow in clumps, and so far I have only guesses but no positive I.D. If anyone reading knows I would love a suggestion.

Anyway I had sketched these same mushrooms in the Field Journal, and as I was scanning the journal page for a blog update, I realized that I preferred the crop I used in the Journal to the one in the above drawing. Thankfully in this day and age you don't have to actually redraw a sketch to make changes to it, esp. when those changes are only size and scale. So I scanned the drawing, brought the scan into Photoshop and played around with it. The photograph below shows some of the printouts I did of that play.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, I was using an old small camera and the batteries didn't want to support the flash. Still I think you get the general idea. I increased the size of my drawing and moved it around the rectangle to view various crops. I don't think I will tell you which one I decided on. I am in the process of transferring it over to good paper and will hopefully have an update if not this weekend then next week for you.

Below are a couple of my Field Journal pages from this past week.

Last Saturday I went over to Borderland State Park in Easton, MA for another visit. The drawings above are either materials I picked up in the park or an interesting site that I noticed during this visit.

The top image is a Shag Bark Hickory leaf, with a couple of Hickory nuts, one without its protective case and the other with part of it still on. Hickory nuts are yummy to eat, but the nuts are small and hard with not a lot of meat in them. Native Americans used them as a food source, and would certainly have known every tree in their territory. The squirrels also love the nuts so I was amazed at the number that were on the ground below this tree. Still the tree is in an area of high people/dog traffic so that may be keeping the squirrels away.

The next leaf drawn is of a White Oak, I picked this one up in the woods. Most of the forests I visit are a mixture of Eastern White Pine, various oaks, and some Beeches. I am trying in the Journal to document the various varieties of trees in each location.

The last drawing is a bit of a mystery, not the drawing the structure. Someone/sometime went to a lot of effort to build this small stone structure. It is about 4 feet high and wide, and maybe 4 or 5 feet deep (will have to pay better attention the next time I visit the park). The area in front of it looks like it could have been a house foundation at one time. Anyway it is too small for any livestock to have been penned in it, except chickens, and I can't see anyone doing that, it would be very hard to clean out. There is no mortar between the stones, but that top stone is very large and really the whole was very well constructed. It is built into a hillside so there is earth around the back and sides. I hadn't noticed this on my prior visits (and yes I had walked by the area before) but some of the undergrowth is beginning to die back so this time I did notice, a puzzlement.

My Journal pages from Monday's visit to Daniel Webster:

The top sketch is of the log they have in the pond. Water level in the pond was up this past Monday from all the rain we had had the previous week and I wanted to document it.  I had drawn this log before when the water level was much lower, quite a change. As usual a couple of turtles were sun bathing when I arrived.

The bottom sketch is from a photo I made just as I was leaving the sanctuary. A crow was sitting on the fence near the road and another was sitting on top of the visitor building. Not my best drawings of crows, but it sort of works.

Enough for today, this ended up longer then I expected it to be. Per usual comments are welcome. Thanks for reading.

Leaves, Sort of

Above is my one of my latest works in progress. It looks complicated but is really very easy to do. I am sorry I don't have more in-process photos to post for this as I suppose some of my readers might have enjoyed seeing how I got to this point.

I was thinking about Zentangles and how you start them with a "string" (a simple line or shape). Then I recalled an exercise from I think my Color and Design class a couple of years ago. But I am sure I learned to do this much longer ago then that, it is sort of a standard exercise that has been around for a long time.

Take a simple shape, in my case I drew the stylized leaf below. Sort of based on the shape of some oak leaves I have been drawing in my nature journal.

I then used tracing paper to copy the shape and to transfer the image to an 8 inch square of Stonehenge paper. I marked 1 inch borders on the Stonehenge but when I was tracing the leaf I sometimes placed it so part of the leaf would be outside those lines.

I traced the leaf five six times, rotating and flipping the design so that the leaves overlapped each other and some of the edges of my paper. The idea is to break up the white space into smaller sections. I then used one of my technical pens to trace the outlines of all of the leaves. I am now in the process of adding fills to some of the sections. When I finish with the fills I will add color, not sure right now if it will be watercolor or colored pencil. Most likely it will be colored pencil as Stonehenge isn't really a watercolor paper, though I understand it will take some water. Come back later this week and I will hopefully have a progress update.

Below is one of my latest journal pages:

Last Friday after 3 1/2 days of rain and clouds, the sun finally came back out and I was able to take the camera off to one of my haunts for a walk. In this case it was Blue Hills Reservation, first Trailside Museum then Houghton's Pond. The mushrooms I saw and photographed growing in a clump at the base of a tree in the Great Blue Hill area. I really like these shapes and have plans to do at least one larger work with them, but am saving it for another post.

The man and dog I saw at Houghton's Pond. He was tossing a tennis ball into the water for the dog to fetch. I think the dog was having a wonderful time.

Last but not least is last nights figure drawing:

I am not happy with the face, I drew it over at least 3 times and just couldn't seem to make it work for me. Part of the problem was the head tilt, complicated by the angle, just not in the groove last night I guess. The one thing I am happy about is that she is lying on/in the couch, not floating above it.

We did have a fairly good turn out last night, three other women and one of our regular males, so it was a good evening otherwise.

That is it for today. I will probably be doing an extra update this week, as I have a couple more Journal pages and my mushroom project to post. In the meantime comments are always welcome.

Gloomy Days

Today's title references the weather, we have had rain and clouds for the past 3 days and this morning I woke to more clouds. Now the sun is peaking through occasionally and the forecast for the afternoon is sunshine. I just hope they are right, I want to get out and about today after being stuck inside. Poor camera is feeling neglected.

The only good thing about the weather is that I have been working on a couple of drawings. The first two images are of the same drawing, the one above is the final with a more definite suggestion of a horizon, the one below is my initial finished version. I posted it on Wetcanvas and someone made the suggestion that a horizon might be a good idea. So what do my viewers think. The drawing isn't sprayed so I can take the lightly drawn horizon trees out if I want. Just not sure I want to.  They do break up that empty middle space.

Obviously parts of this drawing are fantasy while the dragonflies are based on photographs I have made this summer. My title for the work is Tethered, but I am open to other suggestions.

Below is the second version of a work with my stylized sun:

Went with a different format for this one, square instead of rectangle, and I used the white Stonehendge instead of the grey. Some parts of this I like but others not so much. Not sure what that birdhouse is doing there except I needed something in that lower right corner and I was drawing birdhouses in the Nature Journal not too long ago.

I am thinking about trying again to use that sun, third time the charm, right?

No Journal pages today, with the rain I haven't been out to any of my sanctuaries or reserves. Below are a couple of photographs I made last week at Stony Brook.

Not sure what this fungus is, the dead tree they were growing out of was still standing so that made them easy to photograph. Then the sunlight was in the right direction for some great cast shadows. Sometimes a photographer gets lucky.

Then there was this:

Again I haven't been able to identify the type of fungus, the photo is a bit misleading as it is only a couple of inches high. I noticed the color in the leaf litter otherwise might have missed it altogether.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are always welcome, and today I would love your opinion about which version of Tethered you prefer.

Flash to the Past with some of today

The drawing above is old, really old, I drew it back in 1973, and no I wasn't a child prodigy, I was in my early 20's and exploring drawing shapes and textures with graphite. Here it is over 40 years later and I am back doing the same thing. Well, not quite of course, I am not the same person I was back then, though I think the core me hasn't changed that much. I feel I am now a much more proficient artists, being far more skillful with the human form than I was back in my youth.

I have shown Scott, the artist whose studio I attend for the weekly life drawing sessions, some of my current pencil abstracts. He likes them and is encouraging me to continue working in this style. Since I find it relaxing and enjoyable to draw these I don't need a lot of encouragement to do so.

Below is a wip scan of my current pencil drawing, and no it isn't finished, getting there but not done. I started this when the ink/colored pencil drawing I was working on wasn't going the way I wanted it to. That one is a revisit to the sun I drew in the last colored pencil drawing. The jury is still out on it so you will just have to wait for another post to see what I am up to.

The tentative title for this is Tethered, subject to change of curse, but right now I think it fits.

Next are a couple of more of my Nature Journal pages.

Last Friday I drove out to Stony Brook sanctuary to see if they had any butterflies. I did photograph one, but it isn't my best so I won't post it. The drawings in the Journal are of an acorn and an oak leaf, as there were quite a few leaves on the ground from our Hurricane and some immature acorns. Not as many acorns as I would have expected given the time of year, so I will be interested in seeing how large the crop is this fall. It may be a bad year for squirrels and chipmunks.

Speaking of chipmunks, I watched one scurry down its hole, I wasn't fast enough to make a photo though I did capture another one in a photo a bit later on. I don't think I had realized they lived in holes in the ground which seems silly as I know they live in the woods and not in trees like squirrels, so why I didn't connect them to the holes I occasionally see I don't know.

I went slightly off trail to photograph a downed tree and ended up photographing the green frog in the drawing above. I don't usually see the frogs much less get to photograph them so this was fun for me.

Yesterday I made my weekly trek to Daniel Webster sanctuary:

The Canada Geese are migrating, and they find Daniel Webster a perfect spot to rest on their journey. The mowed fields are a great food source and they use the pond as a large bird bath before they continue their flights. It was fun to sit in the hide and watch the flock behavior. The geese really immerse themselves in the water when having a bath, some even looked like they rolled over on their backs, at least I could see the light under body feathers. After getting thoroughly wet they preen and flap their wings to dry. When the group is finished bathing they pull apart from the rest into an open section of the pond. Then one starts honking and the others take it up, I think it is sort of like a roll call, when it is done one bird will take off first and the rest will follow.

The sketches in the book are top, several geese at the pond preening. Middle is a sketch of some bittersweet with leaves and berries. I think this is American bittersweet which isn't as destructive as the Asian variety, but I may be wrong. The last image is of a Canada Goose in the process of taking off from the pond.

My last image for you today is last nights figure drawing.

Not much to say about this. I am not sure I have her sitting "in" the chair, but am otherwise fairly pleased with how it came out.

That is it for today. We have cloudy sky's and off and on rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. I am sure we need it. The Pond at Daniel Webster was down from last week. Per usual comments are welcome and appreciated.

September Sun and Journal Updates

It is finished, I think, but I haven't sprayed the fixative on it yet nor have I signed my name. The sun doesn't work the way I wanted it to when I started this. Course I am not sure why or I would fix it. Hmm, maybe if I had put it a bit further up in the sky. Ah well, I was really just wanting to spend more time with my new Stonehendge paper, so this exercise does serve that purpose. Not sure I really like this paper for my colored pencil work. It takes a lot of light layers and I find I get impatient with it.

I am not done with this sun by any means, in fact I just traced it over onto a new piece of Stonehendge and will try something different with it this time. No pillar for one thing.

In the aftermath of our Hurricane Irene, we have had beautiful weather this week so I have been out and about to my various nature sites. Below are 2 pages from my journal.

I was in Massasoit State park for the above page. Mostly in the areas around Lake Rico. Though the day wasn't that hot (upper 70's) it was muggy so it was uncomfortable under the trees limiting how far I wanted to walk. The drawings are of some pine cones I picked up, just about actual size. Not sure what the tree for the smaller ones is, but the longer top cone is from a Eastern White Pine. The bottom two sketches are of a seed pod on a Lady Slipper. Looks like the bloom dries up and just hangs off the front of the pod. I only saw the one seed pod, though I saw a lot of Lady Slippers with the flower stem still standing. At least I know where to go looking for Lady Slippers next spring.

Yesterday I drove up to the Blue Hills Reservation. I started around the Trailside Museum where they have the birdfeeders and a wildflower garden. Not much activity butterfly wise, though I did manage a photo of a yellow butterfly, and did see another Common Buckeye. I have two images in the Journal from that site, the top drawing which is of some seedpods, dry and empty, of daffodils of all things. And a drawing of a New England Astor bloom, plants of which I found blooming on the grounds.

I then drove over to Houghton's Pond and walked around the pond. What I found most to photograph were mushrooms, all sizes, many different shapes and colors. I used two of those photos to draw my last 2 images in the Journal. The first one is a yellow mushroom, and yes it is that yellow, and I had to add the colored pencil color to do it justice. The last mushroom I drew in just black and white as the mushroom is basically black and white. I don't recall seeing that last before and I found it only in one location.

There are a lot of Eastern White Pines in the woods around the pond, this means there is a lot of area with little undergrowth and just pine needles for a flooring. Mushrooms seem to love this environment as I certainly saw a lot of them.

I thought you might like to see the photos of the mushrooms I drew:

This is Not photoshopped, well I did crop the image but the color is the color it was. I have tentatively identified this as a Amanita muscaria var. guessowii, but this stem is smooth and the photos I have seen of the guesowii have rough stems. If it is guessowii it is a poisonous mushroom, though it would probably take a several to do you in, still with this one I would look and not touch.

Last photo, my tentative identification of this one is Old Man of the Woods, eatable, but all sources say not worth bothering with as it doesn't have much flavor.  Please note: I am NOT a mushroom expert, even though I think I have identified this one as eatable I may be mistaken, and mushrooms in the field can often look like different species at different stages of growth. Please don't pick and eat wild mushrooms unless you have a guide who knows what they are doing. I am only photographing not picking mushrooms.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.