This will be my last post for this particular blog! Thank you for coming on this journey with me :) Now, let's do this one last time.

Remember those sticks I picked up on my first Abacoa greenway trip? *See post 02/22/19

I wanted to redo them, and since my mom has my mushroom, and I need a second piece to be examined, and I took this opportunity. While I did really want to keep good track of my process, I didn't do the best job at it. I did snap a few pictures, and am proud of the ending result. So now, I present to you, the workings of my final piece:  "Tree Eaters" .

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Hello hello! So, for symposium, I decided to paint two things: the mushroom and the feathers. I've told you about the scientific portions of both of these things, so I guess the best thing for me to do is to walk you through my artistic process.

Before starting any major work, the best thing to do is to leave at least a one inch border all around. From there, you can get to sketching.

The next thing I like to do is look for the lightest pigmented color in my specimen and go over the entire piece with that. I like to go from light to dark and build up my colors.
*See post 02/01/19 for an example of this

This can become a bit tedious, but I think I brings the piece more dimension and life. I also tend to favor not doing color swatches. Taboo, yes, but hear me out.

I've done enough pieces where I have kept color swatches and the results don't come out the same and I start to freak out because I've followed what I did to a tee. By removing color swatches, I take away that sense of panic within myself. Also, I may view a piece a certain way one day, and it changes the next. I believe my paintings and renderings should resemble that, so I don't leave myself a clear road map.

Hence, this,

becoming this.

And, this, 

Becoming that.

I was advised to add small sketches of the birds the feathers came from leading to the final result of the feather piece to be...

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Today is the first day back in class, and it's a work day. I never had a chance to do quick sketches of them, so I did that today. Just in case you forgot what they looked like, here are pictures to jog  your memory.

Here are my renderings of these three photographs. 

As I was painting, I was able to grab Dr. Moore's attention. He told me I was right in my identification of the little blue heron, scientifically known as Egretta caerulea. The white bird, to my surprise, is also a little blue heron! You can tell because of their leg color. With it being white faced, its scientific name is the Egretta novaehollandiae. The more you know!

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Hello there friends. I am still on spring break. I can't do much field wise, but I have taken this time to sit and begin to render some of my specimens and pictures I have taken.

This is called a "death cap" scientifically known as the Amanita sp. The sp. means that the particular species is kind of a toss up. This particular mushrooms is not edible. Remember, I cam across this on March 1, 2019 the second time I went to the Abacoa Greenway. This particular photograph was snapped at 10:46 AM. The resulting rendering is as follows.

​When it came down to rendering, I forgot my burnt sienna watercolor. To make lemonade out of lemons, I tried my best to recreate the color with burn umber, yellow ochre, a touch of lemon yellow, crimson red, and white water color. Naturally, I couldn’t quite get the color I wanted. 
 
Compared to the photo, the fungi looks pretty good I’d say, but the color matching is horrendous. Will I redo this one? Probably.

I do like this, but for symposium, I think I'm going to go with the mushroom.

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​To make up for last week’s trip, I went to a place called Freedom Park in my hometown of Naples, Florida. Freedom Park is a 50 acres and is comprised of freshwater marshes and low-lying wetlands. Before restoration, this land was overrun with invasive species such as the Brazilian pepper. After some TLC, the invasive species were removed, native species of plants were put in, overgrown foliage was dealt with, and the fauna has been thriving. There are a variety of native species you can see including alligators, ibises, and more!

I saw birds and naturally I hid behind my mom (she is smaller than I am so you can imagine how ridiculous that looked). The opportunity was too great to pass up so I sent my brother to photograph the birds instead. Here are some of my favorite shots. ​

The birds in question were spotted at 2:00 PM on the boardwalk portion of the park. From what I can tell, the blue bird was a little blue heron and I am unsure of the white bird. That’ll be a question for Dr. Moore next week. 

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I’m a sucker for texture and lines. Mushrooms were the absolute last thing I thought would have all the things I wanted. 

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Hello interweb. Today’s adventure has been a departure from the beach study. Today, we went to the Abacoa Greenway.

I knew from the very start, I wanted to work on things that were vibrant in color.
What ended up grabbing my eye was the orange shelf fungus, scientifically known as the Pycnoporus sanguineus. The funny thing about this a nickname for it is the “tree eater”, which I find to be very amusing. With that being said, it is invasive to Florida.

Sometimes, that’s just the way it goes. Sometimes you work well with a medium, and other times you don’t. I’m curious to see how this piece would look if I redid them in watercolor…

​Word Count: 183

Hey there, I was expecting you. Today was more of a work day. I had the intention of painting shells, but my bird feathers from last week were calling to me. Before starting, Professor Lemeh told us about the bird feather index, and naturally, I made a mental note to check it out seeing as I still had no clue what one of my feathers were. 
 
I began sketching with an H pencil just to shake it up a little. From there, I followed the general shapes of the feathers and went as far as to measure everything. With the hour and a half I had left, I began to watercolor finding hints of colors not overtly evident like ultramarine blue in the brown feathers. My painting palette stayed within burnt umber, burnt sienna, a smidge of yellow ochre, a dash of ultramarine blue, as well as a few swipes of white India ink to produce this 3 hour rending.

Not too shabby if I say so myself. I really enjoyed doing these, and wish I could spend more time on them. Maybe this will be my symposium piece...

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Hello, hello, hello! Today, we went to coral cove!

I’m unsure of the rock, but the little piece of foliage on top of it is seaweed. The specific seaweed is called sargassum, which is scientifically known as Sargassum fluitans.

I also took pictures of barnacles. 

They were embedded in what one would called coquina or shell hash. There are a few different species in this sole picture, but the one by itself in the lower half of the picture is called the mossy chiton or Mopalia muscosa.

I did cave and picked up two containers full of shells. It happens. However, as I was about to leave, I spotted what would piqued my interest: bird feathers. Did I snap a picture of them in the sand dunes? No. I was too excited about my find. The perfect specimens to play with texture and line piqued my interest and then, Dr. Moore came over. Naturally, I began to write down identifications of the bird feathers. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the feathers in particular, but here is what I did get a picture of.

This particular feather is one from a song bird called the brown thrasher, scientifically known as Toxostoma rufum. Here are some crude, and when I say crude, I mean crude​, sketches and field notes. 

Tune in next week to see what I can do with some time.
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Hey there. This is going to be a bit of a shorter post. We were supposed to go to Coral Cove today, but this Florida weather is going a bit bananas. That's okay though. We got to learn about microscopes from Dr. Richardson for the first hour or so of class. When using a microscope, the most important thing is to write down the magnification you're using to observe and render your specimen. Afterwards, we were able to use some of the different microscopes. There were only 8 available so the other 22 of us got around to look at the assignment Professor Lemeh assigned us last week. All I have to say is I'm not much of a fan of pine cones anymore.

It took me a lot longer to copy this pine cone then I anticipated. At least 5 hours in fact. Going into class, I found it interesting how everyone had different approaches. I eyeballed it and hoped for the best. Others gridded it, traced, and even took digital captures to decide where they were drawing. It was pretty cool. The biggest note: take a step back and look at your work to decide if your sizing is right. We were then sent out to collect items from the outdoors. I've done a leaf already, so I thought I'd shake it up a bit and try something different. 

Acorns! Specifically, a live oak acorn. The live oak is scientifically known as Quercus virginiana. Its group is the Dicot and its family is the Fagaceae. It is a native tree to the south of North America. 

I ended up taking pictures at a 4.5 magnification of the acorn shell, and they came out pretty cool. 

When it came to painting, I only painted one fully through. The second I have partially painted. This is a look into how I layer my colors and how I arrive at my final depictions. 

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