Mushroom mushroom

I'm working on drawing 100 packets of mushrooms, so here are some mushroom facts.

June is the beginning of the 100 Days Project Scotland. Long-time subscribers will know that every year I try my best at a 100 Day Project and this year is no different. I’ve already made it too complicated and time consuming a project… but I’m working on editing my approach rather than giving up completely, this time. Dafty that I am.

The concept: create 100 illustrated seed packets but for mushrooms. Mushrooms have microscopic spores rather than seeds, and are, in fact, closer to an animal than a plant so maybe it’s totally incorrect to even think of them as akin to a seed. Anyway, I’ve got a big list of 100 mushrooms to draw, and I’ve started with my first 11 packets. Here’s four.

You can follow along on Instagram to see them pop up, almost daily (I messed up for a few days and had to do a dump of them all this week, but they’re all going to be there eventually) a bit like mushrooms themselves.

It’s an excuse to try out new compositions and ideas and faff around with real paper and pencils. It’s very enjoyable. I’d love you to follow along!

Now, here’s some interesting tidbits about my favourite ‘shrooms so far.

NB - yes, I redrew the first two of these for this newsletter and yes, that is some of the reason I was behind on my daily mushrooms. But the packet illustrations just weren’t good enough, and I still used paper and pencil! I just coloured them with the iPad in the dark under a blanket whilst hoping amongst hope that the newest Lab Assistant would go the fuck to sleep.

Any mushroom requests for next week? I’m planning a big old post about old mushrooms, and of course, mycelium… Although the latter is tricky to draw in an inventive way. But I’m always always open to suggestions from you lovely lot!