I've been spending a lot of time outside this summer, working on improving my plein air painting skills. I've always preferred to work from a photo, but it's been too hot to sit inside in the studio! So off I went, often accompanied by my husband, in search of shady spots to to paint in the nearby state parks.
Now, this probably won't come as a surprise, but forests are really green. I got sick of painting in shades of green pretty quickly, so I started looking for more colorful, smaller objects. Thankfully there were lots of options to choose from!
Mushrooms! I never noticed how many there are! So many colors and shapes and textures. I've always been so busy looking for flowers that I never noticed how varied the mushrooms can be, especially in the middle of a humid summer and after a rainstorm. So, I painted a series of mushrooms, paying special attention to the details on each one.
Then I started to think about composition, and how I might combine the mushrooms with other objects we found along our hikes, to create more interesting paintings.
Summer is almost over, so I won't have too many more days to search for mushrooms, but I'm enjoying them in the meantime. I can't wait until the leaves start to change color and nature provides an even more colorful palette!