The Little Nuthatch

Illustration Friday gives a new theme to draw from each Friday. I enjoy having drawing exercises like these but haven't been doing too well on getting them done in time to submit. I haven't even started this week's them of "hybrid". This is last week, "jungle": And the week before was "robot", I did a little watercolor painting of one of my favorite robots, The Iron Giant:

More mushrooms! These are Florida mushrooms.

Here is another inspirational artist I grew up on, Gyo Fujikawa. One of the best! The only book  I still have is Fairy Tales and Fables, which all these pictures come from. However, I strongly remember many others such as Oh, What a Busy Day! and Babies (one of the first picture books to feature all races and cultures). She often illustrated things in chart style, little pictures with captions underneath... I've always loved that style, you can tell as I paint my own charts now!

One of my favorite places in Summer in North Carolina is Mount Mitchell. Coming out of Florida in July it is especially nice to go up the mountain and into cooler weather, the only time in Summer when I have to get my hoodie out again. The main draw is the amazing 360 view, on this particular day it was very foggy and at moments it was too thick to see anything from the summit- but it would clear a bit and the clouds themselves were gorgeous! These photos are from the summit and the gorgeous Balsam Nature Trail.  ...

When in North Carolina we went to the Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah National Forest. It is the home of the first Forestry school, and a very cool place. With all the rain North Carolina has been having, the forests were just going crazy with mushrooms and plant life. It was overwhelming! Every step was another cool thing to look at. Where does this old train track go? The trail did not allow me to follow, perhaps it's even dismantled around the bend, but boy was I curious to know!