Lady Slippers and a figure drawing

My local weather has been chilly and wet, very wet for the past week or two. Spring this year seems to be reversing itself weather wise, with warm dry days early in the season and now with summer almost upon us we are getting chilly wet weather. Don't get me wrong we need the rain, our early spring was too dry, but I am hoping we soon have a dry spell so I can get out and about again. We were lucky enough to have one beautiful sunny day last Friday so I took a trip down to Massasoit State Park in East Taunton, MA. to look for lady slippers. I was not disappointed

Drawings in the Nature Journal above are on top a low shrub with white flowers and some green berries that I noticed by the side of a path. At first I thought they were blue berries, but on coming home and checking in my various wild flower books I am more inclined to think they are actually Deerberry. If I can remember to go back and check that path in a couple weeks when the berries will probably be ripe I should be able to tell for sure by their color and can make a note in the book.

The bottom drawing is of a Pink Lady Slipper. This particular flower/plant was one of three. I made a lot of close up photographs of Lady Slipper flowers, and I am thinking that this year I have finally managed to capture a bit of their beauty. Lady Slippers grow in acid soil, usually found in Pine or Oak woods. Since Massasoit trees are primarily either oak or white pine it is an excellent home for them. They also require undisturbed soil. The Lady Slippers that used to grow in the Blue Hill Reservation are all gone now, a fire went through that area and I am guessing killed off the soil bacterial that the Lady Slippers need to thrive. So sad, as there used to be a bunch of White Lady Slippers in that area, gone, all gone. Well at least the Pink variety seem to be thriving at Massasoit.

Above is my figure drawing from Monday night. The model is a slender young woman, well muscled, who I believe is recently out of the Militarily where she served in Afghanistan. She is fairly long waisted. It was a lovely pose for a well attended session.

Below are a couple of photographs from my visit to Massasoit State Park.

Above is the Lady Slipper photo I used as reference for my drawing. The flowers are complex so I decided to draw just the one. I find that even though they are this lovely pink when you are actually in the woods looking for them they can be easy to over look as the colors blend into the background. One reason why I find it so difficult to make a good photograph.

Thought you might like to see a close up photo of one of the flowers.

My last photo is a close up image of some white Rhododendron flowers that were blooming at the Park Entrance area. I usually see pink or red flowers on the Rhododendrons, but this bush was a lovely white.

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