Forest Floor

I miss the mushrooms. This year’s drought suppressed their growth. Last Fall the ground was populated by a variety of colorful and curiously shaped fungi. 

In Autumn I like to think of the forest floor as a tapestry with colors of dried leaves interwoven with mushrooms and evergreen plants. Here are three tiny, 4” x 4” gouache paintings of the forest floor, without mushrooms.

To accompany my paintings I’ve chosen some words from Suzanne Simard’s book, “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

“The mushroom is the visible tip of something deep and elaborate, like a thick lace tablecloth knitted into the forest floor.”

Field’s Edge

 September was filled with sun shiny days. I enjoyed a few hours painting at the edge of a field one day last week. Here is my 5” x 7”gouache painting along with a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.”