It has been a long stretch since I posted, and perhaps that’s due to how long it’s been since I’ve felt inspired to enter fully back into my artist self. My heart and mind have been very busy wondering what directions I want to go in next, and if I can somehow balance my dedication to conservation with my painting and journal worlds. There is a way, although it’s still not clear to me how I will use my more limited energy reserves.
MUSHROOMS!
Coming back into my painting feels so good! Who’d have thought that painting mushrooms could reconnect me with my painting work?!! I finally completed a series of mushroom paintings on a long-standing commission for a micologist. It was an adventure into the world of fungi for over two years…not a constant focus, but certainly in the back of my mind. Going out into the woods to search for various mushrooms, exploring their immense specificity, identifying a few, and learning from mushroom man Ron Wade was a joy. He is endlessly fascinated with the mushroom world, and so planning how he wanted me to interpret this world had many morphing stages. We finally decided on a series of small studies of some of his favourites. Here are a few of the painted studies.
