Tara Mc

thanks for mentioning how you went about refining - eg the tools you used. Methinks I should invest in some good pencils and not just rely on what I find hanging around the house. :)

how did you get the texture on the leaves of the house plant (beside the horn)? Looks very feathery and I can almost feel it when looking at it.

oh my! oh my! do you illustrate for a living?

First day this week without rain, so walked up the hill behind my house to a granite plateau that has a moss and lichen bed surrounded by hardwood trees, mostly maple. I sat where I had a good close view of at least two distinct mosses and one lichen, some clumped solo, some patches where two or all three were together. The lichen was identifiable as coral lichen, a pale grey green, very soft in the moist ground but seen elsewhere in Ontario on the Canadian Shield of Georgian Bay. The other two are mosses. When I returned home, I tried to identify from one book I have and found the moss id language a little overwhelming but I believe the one that looked like a lime-green feathery mini flat tree-like form is called a plume moss and the third, either a hair cap moss or a juniper moss. I suspect the former as there are no juniper bushes here. It has swirls of spiky close to bottle green leaves and a bit of a root system. The other two were very shallowly connected to the ground with no discernible roots when a sprig or two were easily removed from the clump. On the way home, I also noticed two other kinds of moss and will sketch them soon. I wonder if these three are indigenous to Ontario only? Or to the Canadian Shield?  I wondered why the lichen and plume moss had such shallow roots that mean that they come off the ground in clumps. Is this a survival mechanism, allowing the patch to be kicked up and resettled on a different shallow bed of humus and rock? [looking forward to learning how to use watercolours, especially when it comes to shading and fine details]

now that's a sit spot. well done to observe what we all wish to avoid. I didn't realize beetles could get that big. learning from other comments too. thanks for posting.

love the image, love the thought. didn't know about bait balls

1 what inspired me to try nature journaling? the shifting of the seasons and the beauty of seed pods. a body memory of sketching decades ago. paying attention to something in nature can shift the inner dialogue, create a more open and accepting conversation with self, the world, helpful in the fall as the cold closes in... 2 I like the drawing a day, a page of daily drawings, the close up details, the memory aid the drawings provide, ID support. I hope to capture my various garden beds so I recall what is there and add care notes.