raising Lathyrus

Some photies of my Lathyrus odoratus herbarium specimen, a project we were working on last year.

The witchy magic was to take a dried up old plant and make  a picture out of it, making it look like some kind of life-force had ever flowed through it, all the time in a highly schematic way showing a sort of generalised representation of a botanical construction of a plant - and hopefully preserving just a little of its very own individual selfhood. And trying to remove as much of your own nonsense from the process, whilst managing an engaging 'personal style'.

Oh I love that shit.  And how I love the human brain, to be able to make such varied and fanciful constructions of its reality and such jostling and jarring narratives and put them together as if nothing were more difficult than learning to control a rotring pen on drafting film. Which is difficult indeed, i hope to get an opportunity to bore you about that later.

Intrepid plant hunting

It's all just an excuse, isn't it, to have exciting days out in interesting places. That's a good bike that is too.

Im looking for Hippophae rhamnoides,  Sea Buckthorn. Found it, too:

That's a good plant, that is.  

Then I come home and do lots of this sort of nonsense:

I'm going to enjoy this plant as it has a relationship with my lovely Frankia bacteria, who make beautiful orange nodules, they'll go lovely with the berries....

And the ubiquitous predatory spider mite makes an appearance. I don't know why I'm compelled to make a note of it, I'm always delighted to see them scampering about their business, but suspect it's a bit like those children who shout "DOGGIE!" every time they pass a hound of any sort, part of the fun is in the shouting itself.

Alder catkins

Here are some nice male and female flowering Parts of my Alnus glutinosa then. There's more but I fell off my photographing-the-work horse so no more photies of that for now. Too busy doing tiny tiny little brushstrokes, you see.

I'm definitely going to be a better person this year: I'm looking at five plants that have symbioses with bacteria and which nodulate. Regular readers will be aware that there is nobody better than a bacterium to do a tiny tiny brushstroke, the plan is to harness them in the service of Scientific Illustration. Failing that, plan B is to get myself some bigger brushes.

Hunter's moon

This is one of the lovely things you will be able to see if you come to Art's Complex on  Friday 11th October to Sunday 20th October and see our 'Make yourself @ home" show. (That link will give you address & all kinds of exciting blurb & information and pictures and work by other fabulous artists)