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How to paint cichlids
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How to Paint a Mushroom

11/12/2015

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It's fall and I am painting mushrooms non-stop! Tonight, I thought I would take some step by step progress photos and show how I go about painting a mushroom.

Step 1: Find a mushroom. (Or if you live in California... and it hasn't rained enough yet... look some up in guide books and online).
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Highly recommend David Arora's "Mushrooms Demystified" for anybody who wants to know everything about fungi while also working on their biceps.
Step 2: Sketch! I like to do sketches in a very light pencil (3H) directly on watercolor paper. Keeping it light helps when I make the inevitable mistake and have to erase. I think I erased this mushroom four times before getting the cap shape right. For mushrooms, it's important to pay close attention to the shape of the cap (is it rounded? bell-shaped? is there a dent in the middle?), the texture of the stalk (is it smooth? fuzzy?), and other structures such as the volva (that's "volva", not "vulva") and annulus (also not what it sounds like). 

I have picked the Fly Amanita (Amanita mascaria). This species has a rounded cap covered in white warts, a skirt-like annulus, a smooth stalk, and a bulbous base.
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Step 3: Block in some of the colors. For this species, I know that the top of the cap shades to a red-yellow, so I put down a layer of yellow that will get covered up with red paint later. I always test colors and color combinations on a sheet of paper before using them on the real painting so that I know how they will turn out. At this point it looks super ugly. It is very difficult to get past this point and realize that it will look better later, but you just have to keep working on it until it improves. Don't give up!
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Step 4: See? It looks a little better after filling in the rest of the cap.
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Step 5: Shading. I use an even mix of ultramarine blue and burnt umber to make a gray shadow color. Shading the white parts of the mushroom involves a teeny amount of paint applied in the shadow areas and then blended using water to make it look more subtle.
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Step 6: Darken the darks. I picked a dark green to add to the red for shading around the cap. I also stuck some dark gray under the cap and around the base of the stalk. Aaaaaand it's done!
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Upcoming Events

11/4/2015

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Everything is happening this fall, my favorite time of the year! The mushrooms are coming out and I'm busy painting them. This fall, I have artwork on display in two art exhibits, and I will have a booth up in a holiday art fair and the fungus fair. I hope you can make it out to these events to check out the beautiful work from local artists and learn a couple of things about fungi.
Bonny Doon Holiday Arts and Crafts Faire
I will have a booth up to sell holiday cards and art prints.

Saturday, November 7th
10am - 4pm
Bonny Doon Elementary School
1492 Pine Flat Road, Bonny Doon, CA
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Jewels of Nature: Guild of Natural Science Illustrators Show
Showcasing work of California GNSI members with a focus on local endangered and threatened wildlife.

November 3 - January 4
Tilden Park Environmental Education Center
Berkeley, CA
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Wild Mushrooms and Functional Fungi
Ancient, contemporary and future uses of mushrooms in art, science, design and health.

December 4 - March 20
Opening Reception and Talks: December 4th, 5 - 9pm
Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History
705 Front Street, Santa Cruz, CA
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Mycological Society of San Francisco Fungus Fair
The Fair provides information on the uses and abuses of fungi, with displays and exhibits on ecology, toxicology, and cultivation.

Sunday, December 6, 10am - 5pm
San Francisco Fair Building, Golden Gate Park
1199 9th Ave. (at Lincoln), San Francisco, CA


Illustration by Sean Vidal Edgerton

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