Hopping Down the Mushroom Trail!

This past weekend the Bear and I walked along one of our favorite trails The BlueBell Trail. You may remember it from such posts as Cherry Blossoms, Blue Bells and Easter Eggs Oh My! This visit was a good one because of all the tiny little things that just kept catching my eye. The idea was of course to walk at a swift pace and get some excercise in but I kept stopping so often to take pictures that not many calories got burned that day. The pics were worth it though, I hope!
Can you see the little toadie in the left half of the picture? He is literally the size of one segment of you little finger!
This little guys was the same size, just a different color. A large tractor had gone down the path at some point and made ruts that had then gathered the rain water. These tiny little toadies were living around them and you could see the tadpoles that were swiming around. What a tiny magical little world they live in.Speaking of tiny magical worlds. Also all along the trail were mushrooms of all shapes and colors. They were also all very very small. I had to set my camera down on the ground to take many of these pictures. Can't you just imagine the little fairies that must come out at night when no humans are around to play amongst these wonderous little fungi?
They are little landscapes all their own. I hope you enjoyed this little hop down the mushroom trail. We certainly did!

Illustration Friday...Foggy

This is not a fresh new painting but I saw the topic for Illustration Friday and I just had to post this. For those of you new to this watercolor it was of the early morning fog over the golf course below our house in Carson City Nevada. The Bear was driving to work that morning and the scene was so wonderful he called me and I walked down to photograph it. This is a small painting, only 4X6. I hope you enjoy it!

Necro-Ornitho-Graphy or Ode to a Little Friend...

For the past week this little birdie had been coming to visit us every day to hop along the ground and eat our seed that we put out. We really enjoyed it's daily visits despite the fact that our very amature birding skills and reference guides were unable to identify what type of little birdie it was.Sadly this morning as I stepped outside to let Beanie out for her morning constitutional we found it had passed away in the night and was laying peacefully under our bush.

It's larger than a sparrow but smaller than a robin. It's tail set up high and had beautiful white markings. If any of you know what type of little birdie creature he/she was we would greatly appreciate knowing.
There was only one way that I knew to honor this beautiful little creature and that was to sit and sketch it in my moleskine.
This is in fact the first time in over two years that I have sat down and drawn without being tasked to a "Draw Break" by someone. It felt good to break out the moleskine, sketching supplies and get the old hand eye coordination going again. I think there are only 9 sketchs in this moleskine and the the first entry dates back to April 03 when I took a trip to The Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore with my mother. How sad is that? How can I call myself an artist you say? Well fortunately being an "Artist" is not based upon the amount of work you put out, you either are or you aren't.

I will be following my own advice from now on... Get out and just DRAW!