MUSHROOMS

For this page I produced drawings of mushrooms, using water colour, biro & acrylic paint. I wanted to explore mushrooms as they vary in form, shape & colour & thought it would give me better understanding of how to show depth when drawing plants. It also showed me how to connect & overlap these forms in a natural & unforced way. 

In my work I normally stick to black pen drawings, but in these I wanted to use colour so I used watercolour as I like the more muted tones. Bright colours I tend to drift away from, however, watered down colour makes each mushroom look more individual & unique. It separates them from one another.

Another thing I like from these drawings is the subtle variations of texture in the mushrooms, such as smoother tops have smoother lines that go in one direction, & rougher tops have small circles & drips.

As I had finished the texture of the mushrooms, I felt they still looked flat, so I added white acrylic paint highlights to the brightest parts of the mushrooms; such as the rims & the edges of the circles in the bottom right mushroom. The curved edges to these plants give a more dynamic & lifelike appearance too.

One thing I would alter in the future is I would add bolder highlights to the brightest parts of the mushrooms, & I would also build up the colour more so it looks more bold & bright. I like the muted colour, but if I kept building up the colour it would create a stronger image, & then would not need an outline using biro. 

Although the biro helps mark the details within the mushroom, it could be done more naturally & lifelike if they were purely done in watercolour.

Mushrooms are a useful study within this topic as they can be used & presented in a wide mixture of environments within artwork. They can be used in beautiful, colourful artworks or dull, overgrown & dark artworks. Mushrooms are diverse in nature & are good to use as a small detail within artwork.