Site Information: June 25th at 6:30pm in Alden, Michigan on Torch Lake
Weather: Partly Cloudy and
When I first arrived at my site, I was greeted with a baby frog. As I walked up, it quickly tried to get away as my presence probably scared it a lot. To start, I pulled out my phone to use the iNaturalist and Seek apps to better identify plants around me. A few of the plants it helped me identify were Ostrich fern, Ground-ivy, and European Lily of the Valley. In the many years I had been to my cottage, I never knew what plants were just outside. Something that I noticed was the amount of sticks that were on the ground. I was surrounded by sticks and had to clear them out of the way to sit down comfortably. I didn’t realize this last time because I had brought a foldable chair with me. Taking a longer and more in-depth look at the land around me I realized that this was a part of my yard I never paid attention to. We really only went over in this area to get kindling for the fire.
I decided to look further into one specific plant I noticed at my site.
Common Name: Ostrich Fern
Scientific Name: Matteuccia struthiopteris
In order to identify this plant, I used the app Seek. It helped me to be able to easily know what type of fern this specifically was. Something interesting that I discovered was they they can grow anywhere form 2 to 8 feet tall. As well, it is native to both Michigan and Vermont.
Matteuccia struthiopteris (L.) Todaro Ostrich Fern. (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=MAST
Matteuccia struthiopteris. (2017, July 07). Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=MAST
While at my site, you can see I spent time sketching different parts of plants I saw around me.
The first sketch I did was of a leaf of Ostrich Fern that had fallen on the ground. I decided to sketch this because, like I said before, it takes up a lot of my yard and wanted to give it an in-depth look.
My second sketch was of a pine cone. I decided to sketch this because I thought the layers would challenge me to slow down and take my time drawing what it saw. It made me take time to see how they layered over either other, how to make it appear that way, and take into account the details of a pine cone.
Third, I decided to sketch a leaf that I found growing from the ground. I wanted to do a close up look for this sketch to find the finer details of a part of plants that we frequently look over. Seeing the details made me think of all that must be going on just inside of this one leaf and part of another.
For my final sketch, I drew birch bark that had fallen and curled up. I thought this would be a real challenge for me as well as something important to me. Birch trees and birch bark hold a very special place in my heart that brings me back to happy times. I wanted to try and take how I felt about this thing and put it into a sketch. I wanted to give this piece of bark the time and respect it deserved.
Overall, this sketching experience was impactful in how I view the world around me. It reminded me to slow down to see the finer details rather than just viewing the general aspect of plants and things. This was a challenging exercise for me as I am still practicing sketching. I am very new to this so technique and details are not something I have gotten the hang of yet. I tried to depict what I was viewing as best as I could which I think is still very impactful because it taught me lessons on patience and slowing down. During my next visit, I would really like to pay more attention to the birch trees and how they fit into this ecosystem.