Sketches Here and There

One of today's sketches... a blazing star, rough, I believe, with just the very top flower in bloom.

This sketch of a cardinal flower is from Sunday at the botanic gardens... the red was so deep and bright and velvety and wonderful that I actually added some color to part of the sketch... but Crayola didn't do it justice, I'm afraid.
The bunchberry is the sketch I did in Maine, which isn't my favorite ever. I'd have preferred to draw one with actual berries -- there were some, but not where we stopped. The form was almost too simple, and that made it harder to draw...

Trip Journal: Devil's Lake

Last year, upon returning from Devil's Lake, I wrote an essay about how I felt travelling, as an adult, to a place that was an integral part of my early childhood. Having already written about that, I think this year, I'll just show some plants I saw there.
Bunchberry... a northwoods favorite of mine. I planted some at my house and it does come back, but it has never flowered... I should have put it under my evergreens, as a lot of things won't grow there and bunchberry does seem to grown by pines quite often. If I ever find more...
Canada lily, its flowers so tiny most people say "where?" when I point one out...
Neat wrinkly fungi growing from a log.
Black raspberry, or blackberry.
The grass has eyes... and they're yellow! (Yellow-eyed grass.)
This lichen was such as spectacular color, which really doesn't translate here. It gradually went from a pale mint green to a dark army green...
These tent caterpillars -- not the invasive gypsy moths, but a native -- were everywhere, defoliating trees, especially cherries.
I sketched this mayapple flower but I didn't have the time, while the kids were working, to really do the leaves... Oh, well...