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.

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.

Ferns Finished

I consider this done, well I have done just a bit more tweaking since I made the scan but I doubt it would be noticed so I haven't re-scanned the image. I rather like how this came out. Though I don't think I will use Stonehendge paper for any ink work other than stippling. The paper seems a bit soft. Still it is rated for ink and in this case I think the black and grey paper really work together. White paper would have been too harsh.

I only wish it didn't take so long to do a stipple piece. I have spent many, many hours on this in the past couple of days.

Next just a little drawing:

On my visits to Long Pasture on the Cape I have been photographing the sheep. On my second visit the woman who takes care of them arrived and let them out of their pen. I was able to make several good photos including the one I used as reference to the above drawing. I didn't spend  lot of time on this, but I rather like how it came out. A very woolly sheep, which had been sheared the last time I visited.

Another page from my Journal:

In this case I wrote most of the Journal while visiting Borderland State Park in Easton, MA. but did the drawings at home using my photographs as reference. The mushrooms which I wanted to do needed color. While I was on my walk making photographs of the various mushroom that had popped up do to our latest rain, I ran into a woman who was harvesting them. The mushroom in the book are 3 eatable varieties that she had harvested to take home. She had a couple of bins of various types of mushrooms that she had harvested. From her accent I would say she was from Central Europe so probably grew up harvesting mushrooms in the wild. Not something I plan to take up, way too easy to make a mistake. But it was fun chatting with her.

The building in the Journal is the lodge which is down by one of the ponds and has a couple of fireplaces inside. I am sure it was used by the family for summer evening entertainments.

A couple of photos from my visit to the Park:

A view of one of the ponds. There was an intermittent breeze that day but when when I made this photo the pond surface was so flat it was a perfect mirror of a very blue sky.

Not the best photo of this Common Buckeye butterfly. I have one showing both wings but the focus is a bit off, so this will have to do.

That is it for today. Hope everyone on the East Coast of the US is preparing for Irene, my wish is that she down grades to just a tropical storm, but I have a feeling that isn't going to happen soon. Stay safe, stay dry if you can.

Drawing Thread, Journal, figure, ferns

Above is a sketch of a bowl of thread, another drawing of "everyday" objects. I don't use thread everyday, in fact I haven't sewn anything for months. But this bowl of thread sits on the table where my sewing machine sits and I see it every day. Not my best drawing, but I think I still managed to capture the look of a bunch of spools of thread in a bowl.

Next image is another page out of my Field Journal:

I was out at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary yesterday prior to heading over to the Studio for the weekly long pose session. What a beautiful day, partly cloudy but still lots of sun, a lovely breeze, and temps only in the upper 70's to low 80's, low humidity. I wasn't the only one who felt it was a good day to get out and about. I saw more people yesterday at the sanctuary then I have seen in all my other visits this summer combined.

No special birds though I did watch one grayish bird catching insects at the pond for a bit. I can't figure out what it was, maybe a Mockingbird, though I have never read that they caught insects on the wing as this one was doing. Sorry don't have a good photo of it.

I did perform a minor rescue. When I arrived there was a Monarch butterfly trapped inside the visitors building. I caught and released it outside, I hope it survives OK, it was able to fly away so there is some hope. I didn't make any photo's of it. Seemed cruel to do that when it was trying so hard to get out through the glass of the window.

Below is last nights figure drawing:

Our model was the one we were supposed to have a couple of weeks ago only she didn't show. Humph, well she sat the pose very well last night so I suppose we will have to forgive her. Scott arranged the pose in a very different manner, usually our models are semi lounging but last night she was sitting upright in a chair. Light source was basically on the floor and gave some very strong shadows. Makes it so much easier to draw the model when there are strong shadows. I am fairly pleased, though I struggled a bit to get the shapes blocked, location positions of hands and feet were the issue.

One last drawing, just an update on the stippled ferns:

Progress is slow on this, but there has been progress. More of the background has been filled in and I have started working a bit on the third fern head.

One last photograph:

Made yesterday at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary. Canada Geese coming in for a landing at the pond. There were several bunches of geese at the sanctuary yesterday. I can only assume the geese have started their fall migration and were using the sanctuary as a fuel and rest stop.

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

A Field Journal - Sketchbook

Daniel Webster First Visit May 30th

I want to apologize up front for the poor quality of my scans today. The book I am scanning has gotten wet, and to be honest I am not sure my home scanner is the best option for scanning book pages in the first place.

I have been carrying this book around with me on most of my walks for several weeks if not all summer, but yesterday was the first time I actually opened it to make some notes and a couple of sketches. It was a fairly nice day yesterday sunny, warm, though very muggy so I decided to head over to the Daniel Webster Sanctuary for my weekly visit. Monday is my usual day for visiting but it was pouring rain so I didn't go.

While I was sitting in one of the hides around the pond, I was noting changes from the last time I was visiting and though I need to document this. I happen to have the blank book with me (I have been meaning to do this all summer) so I opened it up and started.

I am not a plein air artist, the bugs get to me, and I don't want to haul paints, brushes and water around, I have too many colored pencils to make it practical to bring them so I will be using just plain black ink. A waterproof Micron is my preferred tool. I will try to do some field sketches but I always bring the camera and will sometimes supplement those images with sketches from my photos.

The top page is a combination of a sketch I made yesterday and others I made at home last night from photographs made on that first visit. I wrote in the journal what I can recall seeing as prodded by reviewing the photographs.

Green Heron

The page above is to mark the visit when I saw the Green Heron. I didn't do much else that day other than sit in the hide watching and making photographs. The sketch is from one of my photos.

Rabbit

The visit documented above was notable for seeing some yellow warblers, at least I think that is what I saw. I tried making a photograph but the birds were feeding on berries in the bushes so not really visible and my camera lens isn't powerful enough to make a good photo under those conditions. I noted that the pond water level was getting very low and watched the dragonflies. On my way out of the sanctuary I saw this rabbit eating grass at the edge of the car park. I made quite a few photos and used one to do the sketch above.

Above are the pages that I actually wrote in the field yesterday. The top drawings on the left of the turtles and dragonfly were done on site. The bottom sketch of the geese feeding in the field was done last night from a photograph I made.

Now that I have actually gotten started doing this, I will try to keep it up. The Daniel Webster is the perfect place to use because with the two hides I have a spot to sit out of the sun, observe nature, and write or draw.

Above is a photo I made yesterday at Daniel Webster. They mow the fields to keep the trees from growing back and turning the fields to forest. Most of what grows in the fields are grasses of various types, you can see them turning golden in the above photo.

One last photo for today. To date, this summer, my best photo of a Monarch Butterfly, made at the North River Sanctuary yesterday afternoon.

That is it for today, if you enjoyed the views into my Nature Journal check out Sketching in Nature, a blog by various artists around the world and their drawings of nature. Per usual comments are always welcome.