Late summer and early autumn is a good season for sketching mushrooms! Or late autumn, as it turns out. I’m still finding a lot of mushrooms these days, as autumn has been mild. With the first frost, they’re usually gone.
When I was little, I used to go foraging mushrooms with my father, so I learnt a lot about what species are edible and which ones to avoid. We have a variety of edible mushrooms around here, and in the small town my parents live in there are people who earn a bit of side money each year by selling their mushrooms to the local restaurants. Do you go foraging?
These days, I mostly leave the mushrooms where they are, and instead study and sketch them – except for particularly yummy ones like porcinis or parasol mushrooms. There are so many fungi species out there and most of them are inedible anyway, so there’s always something new to discover. Fungi come in an incredible variety and it’s fun to learn about them. I love sketching mushrooms because they’re such easy subjects – it’s very relaxing.
When you’re sketching mushrooms, there are a few simple guidelines you can follow to make it easier. Mushrooms have simple shapes and are great subjects for beginning sketchers: a half-sphere or ellipse shape for the round cap, and a cylinder or rectangular shape for the stalk. I mention the 3D-shapes here too, because it’s always good to imagine your subject as a three-dimensional shape that has volume – this makes for a better drawing.
You start by drawing the cap – a more or less irregular ellipse usually rounded like a sphere – and add the underside as another ellipse. Then find the center of the underside and draw in the stalk. Some mushrooms grow in weird shapes though, so there are exceptions for that rule.
Mushrooms are not plants, but fungi, and what we see on the forest floor are the fruits of the fungus, the parts that produce spores for reproduction. To release the spores, mushrooms either have gills or pores on the underside. If you draw gills, make sure they extend from the center point of the stalk, not the corners of the stalk.
I always like to add a bit on grass or dirt around the stalk to show the habitat, too, and I try to leave the mushroom intact when drawing it.
If you’ve accidentally ripped out a mushroom from the forest floor, make sure to put it back to the earth with the gills or pores facing down. That way it can release the spores into the earth.
Some mushrooms have rings around their stalk, some have a bulb or cup at the base. Some have little flakes on the top, and some are partially eaten by animals. There are slimy and dry mushrooms, big and small ones, and some that don’t look like a classic mushroom at all. There are fruit bodies that look like corals, sponges, glowing spit, or like ostrich eggs. I’m always amazed about the variety of mushrooms.
A spontaneous thought: I’m thinking of putting together a quick & easy mini class for sketching mushrooms in the next few days, since I have a lot of fungi available to draw. Is this something you’re interested in? Let me know in the comments!
So…this is a very very interesting topic. I mean, we usually see animals, human figures, cups and fruits to draw…but this is not very common, hence AWSOME!
SO I agree for it!
PS, I also have a suggestion- maybe you could do one for drawing tricky objects like glass or metal…
A mini class on mushroom drawings sounds great!
It sounds like there will be one. :-)
Thanks for the enthusiastic feedback! I’ll note drawing objects on my list, I know that textures and surfaces can be tricky.
yes, please, mushrooms
Thanks for the feedback Susan!
I would enjoy a mushroom class.
That’s great! :-)
Hello Julia, I would be interested in the mushroom drawing class. We get A lot of mushrooms in the Sunshine Coast (Canada) and have been collecting a lot even this week, though it seems quite late in the year. We get chanterelles, porcini, parasol and oyster mushrooms to name a few. In our area we are surrounded by nature walking trails and I find your videos inspiring me to think about how to take what I see and try to reproduce those feelings on paper. I have been enjoying Watercolor pencils as they are so easy to use and clean up. Thanks for all your tips and the love of the natural world that you put in the content. Kindly, Sheri
Yes, it’s quite late in the year and I was surprised that I still saw so many. It sounds like you live in a good area for mushrooms, yum! I’m glad to hear you enjoy my videos and get good ideas from them, that’s the best thing to hear.
Another yes, please. Thanks, Julia!
Alright, I will start soon! You’re very welcome. :-)
Yes, Julia, a mushroom drawing class would be great. I also have been looking for different fungi this last few weeks but I find identifying some of these specimens is rather difficult!
Yes, some of them can be quite difficult to identify, especially when they’re these small obscure ones you can’t eat. I have a quite detailed reference book, but some of them don’t want to be identified! ;-)
Yes, a class on sketching mushrooms would be nice. Typically the colors are unusual and I would enjoy watching you shade the colors.
I would definitely be interested in a class for drawing fungi. I was very much aware of mushrooms this last spring and summer and took a lot of pictures with the intention of doing some nature journaling.
That sounds like you’re already well prepared! :-)
I would be interested in this class. Thank you.
Please yes that my favourite thing to draw and a tricky subject too!!!
Never stop Nature Journaling please I love your pages they inspire me so much.
Stay safe xxx
Thank you for the enthusiastic feedback, Keeley, and I hope you are well and safe too. :-)
I could do with a mushroom sketching class
I would love to take part, beautiful work.
Thanks Elaine, feel welcome to join the course and I hope you’ll enjoy it!