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Featured: Sciartober 2021

Every October, some artists participate "inktober" by making daily paintings and drawings following a themed prompt list. In 2021, I followed science-themed prompts from the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators. This was a fun opportunity to stretch my horizons (not just plants!) while painting daily.

Illustration of three green and brown maple seeds, one partially decayed.

An assortment of plant hairs, including a flat peltate hair, a needle-like stinging hair, a barbed hair, a curved hair, and a basket-shaped water repellent hair.

A pair of yellow and red striped, trumpet-shaped flowers.

A bright orange, daisy-like flower with black and green spots that look a bit like flies from above. A long-tonged fly hovers to the right.

An entirely green insect whose back and flattened legs strongly resemble a leaf.

A jagged chunk of gray rock with darker gray impressions of a plant with tiny compound leaves.

A pair of snails facing each other. They have striped black, white, and yellow shells.

A shiny green beetle with iridescent patches of red, yellow, and blue.

A plant that consists of three very wiggly, ribbonlike brown stems emerging from the ground.

Three grass flowers on a stem. They have purple bottlebrush-like stigmas and dangling orange stamens.

A watercolor painting of a yellow and orange seahorse with a green striped fin. It also has a spiny head, noticeable potbelly, and curling tail.

A watercolor painting of a cluster of star-like, light green flowers against dark green leaves.

A watercolor painting of a cicada insect with folded wings, a black body and bright red eyes. It is resting on a pale green blade of grass.

An ink and watercolor color painting of 4 stages in the development of a five-petaled white flower. It starts with a tiny bud and progresses to a fully open flower with spoon-like petals and a yellow and red-striped center.

A watercolor painting of a large, ornate moth with an orange-striped body. The wings have alternating orange and gray-black stripes with white splotches.

A watercolor painting of a bright green, deeply lobed oak leaf. It has brown spots and ragged edges where it has been eaten by a green and white striped caterpillar.

A watercolor painting of a leathery, five-pointed flower with dark maroon leopard spots on a pale yellow background.

A watercolor painting of three tiny plants. Each one consists only of 2-4 green lobes and a single thread-like root.

A drawing of 4 slightly overlapping hepatica flowers on thin stems. They have varying numbers of strap-shaped petals and clusters of white stamens. The top flower is white, the second is pale pink, the third is streaky purple, and the bottom one is dark purple.

A painting of a small moth with folded wings. It is mostly black with a reddish head and streaks of yellow and red on the wings.

A colored pencil drawing of a short branch with two long, tapered spines emerging from a brown woody swelling. In the background is a compound leaf with many tiny dark green leaflets. An ant crawls on the spine base next to a small, ant-sized hole in the swelling.

A painting showing a pair of shiny, reddish orange, leaflike bracts with a cluster of bright blue berries in the center.

A tiny painting of an oval-shaped, papery brown seed with an umbrella of pale yellow fluff.

A watercolor painting of a flat rosette of pale blue-green lichen.

A watercolor painting of a small, ovate leaf with small, sharp teeth. It is green and yellow with regions of dark brown.

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