Much Room for Mushrooms?

If you’ve seen my social media posts, you might know where I’m going with this. Last year I had a bit of a mushroom phase, which I like to think was like Picasso’s pink and blue periods. That’s what I like to tell myself, anyway!  :D  My mother asked me one day if I’d seen this particular group of mushrooms growing nearby, so I went to look and took my camera with me. This is what resulted: lots of photos of cute fungi.

 While I’m on the subject, did you know that mushrooms are only the ‘flowering’ part of the fungi? Most of it is underground in vast strings of interconnected webs and are mainly found around trees, especially in a forest. As you can see, these were surrounding a tree stump. Fungi is useful to the trees because it connects them to each other and helps them to communicate.

I know that might sound hippyish, but it’s been scientifically proven that trees communicate with each other. If one is being cut or eaten, it releases chemicals which other trees pick up and they react to it by producing another chemical to make their leaves taste worse. At least that’s what I remember from watching a programme on it! They communicate in a similar way through the fungi, so it’s like a symbiotic relationship.

Nature continues to amaze me and the more I learn, the more I think our ancestors were right that there are spirits in the landscape; i.e., more going on than we think.

Anyway, I was inspired by these photos to draw this, a sort of whimsical, fantasy art picture where the mushrooms in the middle are feeling a bit hemmed in.

That turned into a painting:

It is now mounted and available in my shop.

I love fantasy art, especially that of Alan Lee, Anne Stokes and Lisa Parker. I’ve been thinking about trying some myself, particularly after joining in with the Drawlloween challenge last year hosted by Mab Graves on Instagram. I really enjoyed it and surprised myself with what turned up on the paper. I’ve also begun to like whimsical art, so I think I’ll be doing more of this, trying to stretch myself into new areas. Here are a few of the artworks from the Drawlloween challenge, as I didn’t post on my blog during that time. Some of them need more work and improvements and I may do better versions. Let me know what you think.