Everyday on my sketch walk all I see around me is texture – bleak rainy days, on cloudy days, and even on a sunny day. Here in the Pacific Northwest, come fall when the trees have lost all their leaves and the weather turns damp and rainy, the trees seem to come alive again, but this time the pale creamy green you see is mostly lichen. The lichen seem to get brighter and fuller and thrive in this moisture laden atmosphere. Everywhere you look tree trunks and limbs are laden with varieties of the stuff, different sizes, shapes and shades of green from bright greens to whitish pale greens. So sketching trees now isn’t about smooth trunks and limbs but lots and lots of texture to convey the appearance of the moss and lichen. Some are curly, some spongy, some even look like stag horns and some are feathery and long and dangle in strands, but they’re everywhere, even on the broken twigs and a limbs on the ground that manage to find their way home with me. This has inspired me to add more texture to my watercolors and I’ve been trying new ways (new for me) to do so. Here’s a quick view of my attempts so far.

A few treasures from my walk…leaf and lichen

And my impression of a lichen laden tree…

Still working on texture creation, so there’ll be more.