3rd June 2020
Fungi
Illustrator and NATURE JOURNALER Johanna Fiorere shares an inspiring video to get us started with exploring fungi.
Johanna Fiorere is an illustrator, horticulturalist and social media content creator, currently living and studying in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has a deep love of nature which shines through in all her work online. You can find more on her website and Youtube channel.
Johanna also has a Skillshare class entitled ‘Creating a Mushrooms Illustration Using Watercolours and Gouache’. Johanna is a calm and encouraging teacher, leading you step-by-step though the process of creating your own beautiful illustrations.
Nature journaling prompts and ideas
Find a mushroom in your garden (or even in your fridge) and sketch it in your nature journal. See if you can label your sketch with some of the different parts: Cap; gills or pores; scales; annulus; and stem.
Caution should be practiced with wild mushrooms. Some of them can be poisonous.
Use a field guide, or the internet, to explore a type of fungus that you are not familiar with. There are SO many different types of fungi that do not produce classic ‘mushrooms’. Take some time to get to know a new one.
Watch a piece of fruit or a vegetable decompose over time and document this in your journal. This might sound gruesome, but the mould that develops on the surface of an apple left in the fruit bowl too long is actually a type of fungus. Decomposition is a vital function in our natural world and it is, in large part, thanks to fungi that this happens.
Take a look at this very exciting blog post called ‘Nature Journaling with the Fungi’ by artist and environmental educator, Kim McNett. Kim has so much knowledge to share and in this post you will learn how to gather, examine, identify and forage for fungi. It's a must read!
Learn more
Fungi are critical in nature as they play a primary role in the decomposition of organic matter. Fungi break down the remains of dead plants and animals; liberating nutrients, which are then recycled back through the ecological system once again. The most recognisable and charismatic form of fungi are mushrooms. These are, however, just the fruiting bodies of the much larger mycelium, the vegetative part of the organism that is often buried under the soil. Mushrooms appear when conditions for reproduction are favourable, such as after rain.
The study of fungi is called mycology. If you want to learn more about fungi you could find a mycological society near you. These societies are wonderful hubs for information, publications, education and events. They also organise Fungi Forays - gatherings of enthusiastic amateurs and professionals mycologists who venture together into nature to explore interesting fungi. Below are a few mycological associations that might help you in your search for a group near you:
Australasian Mycological Society
Jean Mackay (Drawn In) has a mushroom obsession! Read about how she documented 26 species in a single week in her blog post ‘Mushroom explosion’.
John Muir Laws has a three-part workshop on learning how to draw mushrooms, which you can access from in his blog archive here.
Johanna Fiorere has a useful blog post on her website (eumycota.com) entitled ‘Identifying Mushrooms’ in which she shares information about fungi and how to access resources to help you identify them.
If you are new to fungi, there are beautiful images and an explanation about different types of lichen here, from the Forestry Commission in Scotland.
This video from TED Ed shows how fungi form symbiotic associations with trees, helping communication between them- in exchange for sugars created by the tree through photosynthesis!