With every rare rainy day we get here on the central coast of California, our mushrooms pop out to take advantage of the weather. Here are the newest batch to emerge with Wednesday's rainstorm.
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Thanks to the Yosemite National Park webcams, I get to watch just how gorgeous Yosemite is at this very moment. I will be taking my first solo camping trip to this beautiful park in just a few days, and I can't wait to bring out my sketchbooks, paints, and camera for a 3-day arting expedition!
Sitting at my desk and painting for hours on end was getting to be such a pain in the back. It’s difficult to keep my posture upright when I’m focused on tiny little details. I really wanted a drafting table, but even after searching Craigslist for used ones, I wasn’t coming up with anything I really liked or could afford, so I decided to build my own! I have some basic tools, but no knowledge or experience making furniture. Despite all of that, this process was pretty easy and I ended up with a simple, adjustable, large drawing board. First, I bought all of my materials at the hardware store. The priciest piece was the 2' x 3' birch top that is my drawing surface (a whopping $14). I had the guy at the store cut pieces for the frame and support pieces. I then screwed the frame together using wood screws and inserted two pieces in the middle of the frame that will hold the pegs used for adjusting the tilt. I also screwed a dowel between the two support beams. The longest part of the process was sanding and finishing the top. Once it had multiple coats and was sanded smooth, I screwed the support brace on the back. This was the trickiest part because it needed to match up with the pegs on the frame.The last step was drilling holes and hammering in the pegs. I’m really happy with the outcome. Despite starting with some slightly warped beams, the end result is very stable and sturdy. It is really large, so there is a lot of room to lay out my paintings and reference photos. It would be nice to have a clever way to hold the artwork in place. Currently I’m using blue tape and that works well, but maybe in the future I will come up with something better. Any suggestions? Total cost: $32 Update: I added a little more space and functionality with a folding table that slides under my desk when I'm not working. Orchids display such a crazy diversity of structure, color, pattern, and fragrance. This is Part 3 in my series of blog posts investigating orchid pollination strategies. What makes orchids so weird? It just makes scentsMany insects produce volatile pheromone cocktails to attract mates, but there is a group of bees that actually collects compounds from its environment. Euglossine bees are beautifully shiny neotropical bees. The males spend their time searching for fragrant chemicals to collect and store in their enlarged hind limbs. Presumably the scents are then used by the male to attract mates, but female attraction to fragrant male euglossine bees has yet to be demonstrated. The male bees are so focused on collecting scented compounds that they can easily be attracted by setting out any kind of smelly oil in the jungle. An orchid that could exploit such a drive would be able to attract an abundance of pollinators. That is precisely what Stanhopea and Catasetum orchids have done. The flowers provide a surface covered in smelly volatiles inside a strangely contorted set of petals. The petal arrangement is such that any euglossine bee that flew in to collect his perfumes would rub up against the pollen and take it with him when he leaves. Other interesting facts about euglossine bees: There is a species that is attracted to and even collects large amounts of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) insecticide with no apparent problems. Also, if you are a fan of The Big Bang Theory, you may have heard that a new species of bee was named Euglossa bazinga. True fact. Stanhopea tigrina flowers from the bottom of the plant so that the flowers hang upside down. The lower lip of the flower is covered in fragrant compounds that attract the male euglossine bees.
This is Part 2 in my series highlighting the awesome diversity of orchid pollination strategies. See Part 1 to learn about sexual deception in orchid species. Today we will investigate another strategy that orchids have evolved to attract insect pollinators: Home Sweet HomeLady slipper orchids, members of the genera Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium, are called slipper orchids because they have a cupped lower lip, or labellum. The flower often has coarse hairs, spots, and stripes, giving them an elegant and alien appearance. These features function to attract female bees.
Some species of bees lay their eggs among aphids to provide food for their newly hatched larvae, so they are looking for leaves covered in dark hairy spots. Other bees look for a dark hole or den to deposit their eggs. Seeking a good place to leave her young, the bee lands on the orchid, gets trapped inside the labellum, and carries pollen with her when she escapes. This Cypripedium macranthos has a dark labellum, tricking the female Bombus bee into thinking she has found a good den in which to lay her eggs. The short answer: pollination. Orchids have evolved a huge variety of pollination strategies. While most flowering plants use bright colors, fragrant scents, or nectar rewards to attract pollinators, many orchids exploit the pollinator’s need for mates or nesting sites instead. The result is an awesome diversity of flower shapes, colors, patterns, and chemical cues. In a jungle filled with fragrant showy flowers, how do you stand out from the crowd? This week I will highlight just a few of the super cool pollination strategies used by orchids, illustrated by yours truly. 1. Sex AppealMany orchids are sexually deceptive, meaning the flowers mimic female wasps. These flowers are shiny, furry, patterned, and some even have eyespots. Almost all known species of sexually deceptive orchid come from Europe and Australia.
In addition to mimicking the looks of a female wasp, these orchids also produce the chemical compounds that mimic the pheromones used by wasps. Female insects produce chemical signals comprised of blends of volatile compounds. The chemical identity and relative concentration of chemicals act as species-specific signatures. Amazingly, sexually deceptive orchids have evolved to produce compound blends with remarkable similarity to the wasp’s pheromones. The Mediterranean orchid species, Ophrys mammosa, uses both visual and chemical cues to attract the male wasp, Andrena fuscosa. The female’s velvety body with reflective blue pattern and shiny blue eyes are part of the orchid’s flower. MSSF Fungus Fair 2013 was such a fun experience. The Hall of Flowers was filled with rows of labeled wild mushrooms, microscopes for an up close look at spores, activities for the kids, growing kits, cooking demos, and even a couple of artists. My table was next to the folks at the Sonoma County Mycological Association (SOMA), and we had a blast. I was fortunate to have Andrew Field with me to help setup, keep me company, and bring coffee on this rare below-freezing day in San Francisco. He had a fun time watching the cooking demos and learning about mushrooms from the experts scattered around the room. I sold lots of prints, especially greeting cards, and I came home with a lovely painting of Stropharia ambigua by Lucy Martin and a growing kit so I can try growing my own mushrooms at home. Everybody at the fair was so welcoming, and I will definitely be back next year with a new batch of mushroom prints and spore print necklaces. The Mycological Society of San Francisco (MSSF) puts on an annual Fungus Fair to showcase the Bay Area's mushroom diversity. It's a wonderful chance to see all of the interesting tasty and deadly species of fungi we have here, and to have your backyard mushrooms identified by the experts. Come enjoy cooking demos, talks, identification tables, and visit vendors selling artwork (including me!), edible mushrooms, and kits for growing your own. Fungus Fair Info Page: mssf.org/fungus-fairs Tickets are $10 for adults: eventbrite.com Date: Sunday, December 8th, 2013 Time: 10am - 5pm Location: Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park at 9th & Lincoln This is my first time ever setting up a table to sell my artwork and it has been an interesting and busy experience. I emailed the MSSF coordinators at the very end of October to see if I could sell fungus-related artwork at the fair. In only 1 month, I managed to paint 6 new mushrooms, get them all printed and packaged, and figure out how to set up my table and all that goes along with selling artwork. It has been really fun thinking about my "brand" and creating a table that reflects my style and looks professional. I learned a ton just from googling craft fair blogs and Pinterest. All of the crafty people out there have a lot of experience and it was so helpful to read advice, lists of things to bring, and to see how other people organize inventories and supplies. I discovered clearbags.com, where I bought cardboard backings and plastic sleeves for my artwork, boxes for greeting card sets, and also high quality paper and cards. All of the packaging really dresses up the prints and makes them look professional. Luckily for me, I was able to utilize a friend's Epson 1400 to print out my artwork, and I'm really happy with the way the prints turned out. So happy with them that I immediately went on out and bought my own used Epson 1400. I also discovered Square, a tool for taking credit card payments with your smartphone, and I'm excited to try it out. Hopefully we will have a good turnout this weekend. I am really hoping we have some rain before the fair so that we get a few good mushrooms popping up. I have decided that my goal for this show is to sell one piece of artwork. If I can do that, I will consider this a success! Here are the pieces I did for the show, all are watercolor on 300 lb hot press paper: It rained a couple of weeks ago, and the first mushrooms of the season came out. I decided to have some fun with them and make spore prints. Spore prints are really easy to make. Get some thick paper (I use watercolor paper or card stock) and lay it on a surface that will not get damaged by moisture. Cut off the mushroom's stem so that the cap sits as flat as possible. Lay the mushroom cap gills down on the paper and cover with a cup or tupperware to prevent air from flowing around the cap. If you leave it overnight, the gills will release their spores onto the paper in a beautifully detailed pattern that matches the gills. If you want to keep the spore print, spray it with artist's fixative or I have heard hairspray works well too.
The best print results came from Chroogomphus vinicolor because of the thick gills and dark black spores. These were so beautiful that I made pendants out of them, and hopefully some mushroom lovers will want to buy these at the fair as well. I tried a couple of techniques for making pendants including using resin and Mod Podge "Dimensional Magic". The fastest, easiest, and most successful method was to buy silver pendants at the local art store. They come with a clear adhesive covering, so all I have to do is cut out the spore print, glue it into the pendant, and cover it with the clear cover. I think they turned out pretty well, I've been wearing this one all week. Fall is here and it's time to paint mushrooms! This is the start of a new smaller painting. Hopefully I can get the moss to look mossy. The final shroom. Moss is pretty difficult to get right. For this moss, I did faint strokes in a light green color and then went in with darker strokes between. The lighter areas in the final painting show what that looked like at first. Then around the base of the mushroom, I went through with more colors layered on top (blue greens, yellow greens, and pale yellow). I will have to practice some different moss types in the future! It's finally happening! Some friends and I will be putting on a cephalopod-themed art exhibit here in Monterey at Cafe Lumiere on OCTOber 19th (get it?). I will have 3 paintings in the exhibit and I'm so excited to see it all on display. The show will go through mid-December, but come on by for our opening night party on Oct. 19th, 6-9pm.
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