Last spring, I did a bunch of dandelion sketches. It took a year, and they are now out as a book. It’s an interactive anatomy guide to the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). It’s silly, you can virtually pull it apart and examine the mechanism of seed dispersal in this favorite ruderal plant. It was fun to make, I hope you love it! It’s available for sale at:
At sunset, bats swooped down feasting on insects. We could only see their silhouettes, so Zev and I got creative in our illustration of them.
The forest understory was one of my favorite parts of visiting the rainforest. There were tiny plants growing from every crack and around every tree trunk. Epiphytes clung to tree trunks, ferns crept around roots, and tendrils of green wound around branches.
Next to a now abandoned, picnic area, was a third waterfall, feeding into a power generator. These were vines drooping down from a branch over the river. The water is murkier here.
As we walked up the moss covered, broken asphalt, we saw giant snails eating palm fronds. They are enormous! Zev and I stopped to sketch them together. Guess who drew what…
On another hike, up the overgrown road that used to be the Southern route into El Yunque National Forest, before a landslide blocked it, we were greeted by cheerful yellow blooming Heliconia flowers and fluttering butterflies. We decided that it’d be fun to try to catalog the butterflies we saw on the days hike.
We hiked into the rainforest further to find a parallel water real with a more gradual incline. The water just trickles down these granite boulders. In a crevice in the middle of the waterfall, I find a solitary, purple orchid.
Water striders skate across the waters surface.
Wading through a chest-high pool of icy water, tickling our feet are freshwater shrimp.
Walkabout 