Mushroom mushroom

I've been struck with a desire to paint toadstools today. It's all DW's fault. Yes, the fabulous Devil's Wallpaper is having a closing down sale, which led to me lusting after this piece, of which I already have a badge version:



I love the fact that the inspiration came from actual conjoined mushrooms. As DW says: "I found some Siamese mushrooms at the supermarket, so I naturally took them home to draw them. Then I realised that they made a heart shape... and what would be even better would be fly agaric mushrooms, because then they would make a love heart. So that's what I did." Aww!

I've loved toadstools since I was a kid - they always reminded me of fairies and such. I have a little collection of toadstool things dotted around the house:



This collection includes the Toadstool Footstool, as previously blogged about here. It sits under my chair in my studio, which is very handy as, being short, my feet don't touch the floor.



That footstool was created by EsmeArt for the UK Etsy Challenge, as was this wee thing:



I loved what everyone made for that mushroom challenge, and that has kicked off my recent love for shrooms. And seeing DW's Mushrooms of Love today has inspired a little sprinkling of shrooms in my art journal:



And, in case you wondered where the name of this post came from, watch this:

An unlikely source of inspiration

A few days ago I took inspiration from an unlikely source - a Wallace & Gromit poster on my wall.



Much as I love them, they've never inspired me to paint before, but looking at the background of that image I had an idea.



I'd been looking for something different to paint, something other than the trees and sunsets. So this simple landscape was a solution to that.



It's not a huge departure from my usual style, but it's something a little different. And it's inspired quite a few works in progress.



As has this sketchbook piece, painted a few days before, which was also an attempt to do something different (this attempt to do something different still ended up in painting trees though, lol).





I'm now newly inspired to paint, after a bit of a dry spell. Which is no bad thing.