Bark Bites

(Sigh.)

I hate this little painting.

But I like the subject: Rot. Decay. Cool fungus and moss and stuff that I don't often see in the dessicated West.

The problem, I discovered, (yes, yes, I should have known!) is that when you bring this sort of thing indoors, it almost immediately starts shriveling up and drying out and losing those aspects that were so appealing in the first place. This chunk of bark, which was a rich brown with glowing bits of sage-y green at Olmsted Falls, became a contrast-less mass of gray and grayer long before I got it all on paper. (Double sigh.)

But hey. I tried.

And then I got out the camera.

I mean, how cool are THESE? All on the same fallen tree trunk. (These at the Lagoon picnic area in the Cleveland Metroparks.) Identification lost on me once again, but there's a nice little library at the Rocky River Nature Center. I might go see what they have in the way of fungi ID books.



I've got another little chunk of something here to try painting later... something with a little more structure to it than the study above. It has dried out, too, but it's still got some contrast and form to it, so I'm hopeful.