Mushroom Mockups!

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With only bits of time lately, I wanted a small project I could chip away at. Spring this year was unusually wet and for a while mushrooms were popping up everywhere. I've always loved their iconic shapes and a dig through my printed paper stash offered up mushroom-y possibilities. More fantastical than accurate, mind you!

 

I browsed through a stack of mushroom identification guides (yay for libraries!). Initially, I got drawn into reproducing detail while exploiting text and other graphic elements of the papers. Like this:

Then I went super simple:

These pseudo-Shaggy Manes cracked me up. They remind me of Victorian lampshades! Then I sketched out rough mushroom shapes, sized for a 5x7-inch card, and created 'viewing' stencils. Like this:

It was interesting to see how much I could simplify an image and still have it read 'mushroom'. Laying the newsprint stencil over printed paper I searched for pattern.

The mushroom below was from a gel-printed magazine page. I started looking for incomplete prints where the white of the paper showed through. To me, the white replicates a bounce of sunlight.

At this point I also started mixing and matching papers for the caps and stems (think they are referred to as stipes). A bit like playing dress-up!

 

And having a lot of fun tilting the caps. A certain angle would suddenly inject a jolt of personality! The mushroom would look stately, even somewhat sombre, but with a few degrees of change to its position the cap could take on a jaunty whimsical vibe.

 

Played around with tall-stemmed guys -- liking the squatty look!

Also started augmenting the sunlight and shadow with a bit of judicious ink pad stamping for the dark side.

This got me to thinking of backgrounds. Since I had a sponge and ink pad at hand, I gave this a try:

 

Then I was off and running, playing around with a variety of backgrounds, aiming to ground the mushroom and vaguely mimic their forest floor home. More on that in the next post! As always, thank you for following my art adventures. It's truly appreciated. Until next time!