Dense on the Ground

You might recognize these drawings from a few weeks ago-- water pickeral seed pods from Beaver Lake swampy place.  I redrew them today in preparation for a trip to the copy center tomorrow where I will enlarge them slightly for use in a woodcut I'm working on.  I expect the real pods have by now disintegrated and sunk to the bottom of the marsh where they'll hunker down in the ooze for the winter.

Meanwhile acorns are so thick on the ground in the woods near our house that walking on them is like walking on a spilled bucket of marbles.  I scooped up a single handful this afternoon while we were walking and dumped them on my drawing table to draw them.  I used the last of some walnut ink that I made a few years ago to start this drawing.  My bottle of ink is quite stinky now but still works well.  However, the walnuts are as dense this year as the acorns are.  So I just went out and gathered a bucketful (from an area of our garden around 6 feet square) and put them in water to soak.  Tomorrow I'll boil these black gunky hulls down to ink.

On the right side of the page is a piece of staghorn sumac with a slightly magnified seed.  Nit a very exciting post, I know, but tomorrow I'll document ink making and post a recipe!