Discovering Popcorn

I tried to eat popcorn (again), but it still makes me sick.

So I drew popcorn instead. 

First, observational studies for accuracy, with lots of erasing.

(not shown here.)

Then, loose sketches. Interpretations.

Feeling the Popcornness. 

Delighting in the gesture, form, contours, miracles & science

of popcorn.

All the while, related thoughts popped onto my paper: 

Discoveries & connections, while spending a slow,

lengthy time with these 3 guys.

Turkey Tail Fungus:

Years ago, an assignment in undergradutate drawing class:

To magnify an object, to try to reproduce it

as precisely as possible. 

I remember spending hours on it.

I also made a magnified study in charcoal

of a broken peanut shell.

I can't find the drawing, 

but I loved getting to know that shell, 

with its repetitive pattern of miniature rectalinear shapes,

& the surprise discovery of skeletal fibers.

The fast sketch, my favorite mode, benefits well

from going back to slower forms of drawing.