Summer Workshops at Hog Island, Maine!

Well! It's been a long time since I've been able to announce an in-person workshop schedule. With improved and improving coronavirus and vaccine news, venues have started to make plans for amended summer programming. Yep, it's a spot of light at the end of the long, tedious tunnel.

Long-time followers will know that the highlight of my summers, long before I moved to Maine, was teaching at the Hog Island Audubon Camp. Summer camp for grown ups has run here every year since 1936, except for one summer during World War II...

... and last year.

So it's with delight that I announce the opening of registration for this summer's camp programs. There will be lots of changes, of course... participant numbers have been cut in half, masks and distancing will still be required. But the island will still be beautiful and even at arm's length the camaraderie and learning will be great.

I'll be on the instructional staff for Arts & Birding week, June 20-25. This year I am particularly excited that not only will I be working once again with the fabulous Jean Mackay, but we've also been able to add good friends and fabulous colleagues Barry Van Dusen and Sean Murtha to the team. The phrase Dream Team might be overused, but in this case it's totally appropriate.

Also new this year are "day camp" programs. If you're not yet ready to join a residential camp experience, but would like to visit Hog Island, I'll be leading a one day on-island sketching adventure on June 10! We'll start out with some skills practice and then roam the island filling sketchbook pages. 

I've got a few more workshops and demos in the works, so watch this space for announcements of firm dates. Yippee! Let's go draw outside this summer!

Writing Nature 2010

Here's some fabulous summer reading! The 2010 issue of "Writing Nature" is now available (free!) online. I'm delighted to have "Decay, Comma" on the cover, but check out illustrations inside by journal-keeper cohorts Sarah Rabkin and Margy O'Brien!

Of course, there's some great writing, too... when you're done looking at the pictures.

Mystery countdown: SIX

And now for something completely different... again...

Okay, so I'm at least a month behind the power curve on this one, and probably all fans of strangely fascinating natural phenomena have already seen it, BUT... just in case you haven't:

Brush and Baren proudly presents:
Fungus Opera



On September 16, Carl Zimmer posted to The Loom at Discover Magazine this lovely video. Mr. Zimmer reports:

"Nicholas Money, an expert on fungi at Miami University, has been playing around with very fast video. Ultra fast. As in 250,000 frames-a-second fast. He knew exactly what this kind of video was made for. To film fungi that live on dung as they discharge their spores. These tiny fungi can blast spores as far as six feet away, boosting the odds that they’ll land on a clean plant that a cow or other grazing animal may eat. The fungi develop inside the animal, get pooped out with its dung, and fire their spores once more."

(The rest of the article here.)

I love this because a) it's in black and white! Do you see prints here? I do. b) it's a view of something that happens all the time, but I've never seen it- even when I lived on a ranch and was surrounded by cow dung, and c) it's one of the more whimsical applications of Verdi's "Anvil Chorus" I've ever seen.

Beauty, whimsy, and mystery first thing in the morning. Can the day get any better than this?