Today I Visited The Ossuary In Hythe, Kent, UK With My Parents. It Was Absolutely Fascinating And Well

Some wild fungi photos that I have taken this autumn. It always amazes me how quickly the fruiting bodies develop and the immense diversity of forms and colors that they can take.

I will probably be using this account to store photos that I have taken so I can use them later on, for work or in my art. Hopefully others will find them interesting or useful as well. I will avoid posting my art and other unrelated posts here.

The top one is the cap of a fly-agaric (a fairytale toadstool). I don’t know what species the others are but they were all photographed in the southeast of the UK.

I wanted to enter an embroidery competition that was run by Domestika. And this is what I ended up coming up with. It is a lichen themed French barrett hair clip.

Prior to planning and making my embroidery I went on some walks and took some photos for inspiration.

I really love lichen it's such a strange thing. The physical structure of lichen is a fungi that clings to tree branches, rocks, and other solid surfaces. The fungi provides a home for a colony of tiny algae or cyanobacteria. The algae or cyanobacteria photosynthesize producing sugars and other molecules that they share with the fungi. These are what give the lichen its colours. So lichen isn't really one thing. It is a living collaboration of two completely unrelated organisms. It can survive desiccation and bounces right back with a little rain.

It looks a bit like coral and can be used to indicate air quality. Overall a fascinating and splendid amalgam.

Yesterday afternoon I dragged my friend to Denge Wood forest. While there, I spotted one of my top five favorite beetles. These lustrous and magnificent little guys are green tiger beetles (Cicindela campestris).

They are incredibly fast predatory beatles that hunt down and eat other insects. The larvae of this beetle live in individual burrows in sandy soil. They flick out the sand around them creating a pitfall that other insects fall into.

So beautiful but deadly.

I was wearing the lichen themed hair clip I made, while on a walk yesterday. I spotted some beautiful lichen and moss and decided to have an impromptu photo shoot. So here are a whole bunch of pictures of my hair clip alongside the organisms that inspired it, just because.

Plus 2 bonus pictures of lichen because I love it.

Backgrounds and geographical structures are things I, currently can't, but would really like to be able to draw/depict. and these are rendered so beautifully that I am saving it for inspirational purposes

Art by Gui Yuan

My last two atlas moths have emerged from their cocoons. They are beautiful and absolutely fascinating.

Can you see the snake head markings on the tip of each forewing? They are there to deter potential predators, which I think is pretty neat.

They are absolutely gorgeous, and I am so glad that they have all hatched safely. Unfortunately, I think these two are both female so it looks like I won't be getting any fertile eggs.

One damaged it's hind wing a little when it flew into one of my orchids. It is the only one that has shown any interest in flying and has been having short (approximately 2 min) flights around my room every evening. Finding a new place to lay eggs each time.

Some absolutely gorgeous illustrations. The first one is my absolute fave (dragons are wonderful) Happy birthday btw.

Hey sprouts! 🌱

I recently had a birthday and I would be grateful for a reblog of my favorite works at the moment! :9

My attempt at Smaugust 2024. Though I am randomly selecting prompts from multiple lists.

The first prompt shown is for fungi.

The second prompt is for amphibian.

The third prompt was venomous. I combined an adder which is my country's only native venomous snake with a Hoopoe bird which has a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria which produces noxious chemicals.

I needed to find a relatively inexpensive horticulturaly adjacent activity for little kids. It needs to go alongside a plant sale, face painting and other horticulture and animal care related activities that will be taking place at an open day at work. So after dinner I cracked out my art supplies and had a bit of a play about.

I was trying to do some pastel rubbings, of bark and leaves, but then I whacked out my printmaking bits and bobs to see what they looked like when printed and I decided to go with that. I've since looked online and there are some beautiful examples of leaves being used in printmaking.

If you're doing it with little kiddy-winks then I would suggest using sturdy leaves that aren't too waxy. Really young, tender leaves will work but they tear easily and they get a bit floppy. You can apply ink with a roller to the top or bottom surface off the leaf though the bottom side usually gives better impressions of the veins. Once your leaf (or leaves) are inked up, place them on a scrap piece of paper (inked side up) and then put a piece of paper over the top. You then want to rub the back of the paper with a spoon or barren until the ink has transferred. Then you can peel away the paper and put it somewhere to dry.

Some after work Instagram browsing brought up an unexpected gem today as it randomly decided to show me some automatons.

I haven't seen any since childhood, where I vaguely recall them featuring on quirky supernatural or spooky shows as creepy curiosities from time to time.

I hadn't realised that they were still made or indeed that they could be made into such beautiful creations. With serenely swimming whales, cantering horses and fluttering birds & insects.

I decided to see if I could make a basic one using bits and bobs from my room. This ended up including black card, scissors, a bamboo skewer from one of my orchids, wire and wire clippers, a thin cylindrical ice cream stick that I saved from a kulfi, and hot glue and my glue gun.

It took a bit of time to wrap my head around the (admittedly very basic) mechanics and the end result is liable to come apart at the seams if I so much as think about turning the mechanism too vigorously. But I am happy with my first attempt.

If I can figure out how to make a less slap dash mechanism then I might make a realistically painted deaths head hawk moth automaton. I am rearing some caterpillars of this species so I am ever so slightly obsessed with them at the moment. You can see the caterpillars at the top of this post and I don't think I am alone in thinking they are absolutely gorgeous little buggers.