I didn’t know I was making these M'Shiitakes 🍄‍ while drawing Mushrooms!

Hello! 

Today I wanted to talk about something fun and inspiring: Notes I took while participating in a mushroom class hosted by The Wild Wonder Foundation! Their mission is to make nature journaling accessible to everyone to help celebrate the world around us.

I love taking these classes because they deepen my understanding of the things I adore drawing. The little details and tips help breath a little more life into the art.

Check out some of my scrawled out notes!

One of my favorite art tips from the class was how to draw mushroom gills. Gills are the structures found under the mushroom cap that hold spores. Instead of drawing every single one, I learned to think of them like alleys seen while driving a car. Only the ones you can look straight down are visible and the gills turned away are not.

On the nature side of things, I discovered that mushrooms grow out of something called “buttons”! Think of them as a mushroom’s version of seeds…kind of. Some mushrooms, like truffles, never grow beyond their “button”. If you slice the button in half, you can even see a tiny mushroom getting ready to emerge!

Another tidbit: mushrooms aren’t perfect (I know, shocking). Their caps and skirts often get torn up, leaving neat and beautiful details. I had never noticed these imperfections before. Now I see them everywhere!

I’ve already started incorporating these imperfections into my doodles. I love the results!

Thank you for joining me on this little mushroom adventure.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this little mushroom adventure very mush. I had a spore-tacular time sharing it with you!

Until next time,

Arielle + Ryan