Caterpillar

I have been looking for Monarch caterpillars but not finding any. Instead I found this!



According to my Caterpillars of Eastern North America book, this is the caterpillar of the White-marked Tussock Moth.



It has a strange look about it from whatever angle or magnification one looks.

From the Garden

I was a bit disappointed in the size of the potatoes that I dug up this morning but then decided that the morning's crop of tomatoes more than made up for the small potatoes.



Below is another sunset photo. It's not as colourful as usual but interesting, nevertheless. I actually took it last Monday but somehow the last week disappeared without my getting around to much blogging. Maybe this week will be better.

New Software

I bought some new software this past week and have been reading, reading, and reading about all the wonderful things it can do when I figure out how to do it. It's Corel Painter. It can simulate many different art media.

I had a less expensive version that came with a tablet that has a special pencil as well as a wireless mouse but somehow I did not ever do much with the software, as it seemed to be just a tease without the capability that I wanted. Now that I have the new software, I look forward to learning how to draw and paint on screen. Below is my first effort. It is the head-on version of the Scarlet Pimpernel that I posted yesterday. For this work I started with a grass photo, added a layer of colour, then did the drawing with "pencil," filled in colour with "watercolour" and then finished with a bit of gouache.



I realize I have a way to go before I am really pleased with final results but I was pleased enough with this first effort to share it.

Pimpernel

As I was walking through a large grassy part of the Royal Botanical Graden Arboretum on the way back to the car from my search through the wild areas for wild flowers a bit of pale red-orange caught my eye. I seldom find this flower when looking for it. It usually just appears, as this one did, when I least exptct it. It goes by the name Pimpernel or Scarlet Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis).

Sunrise

It's almost too hot to think. As the sun was coming up this morning, the temperature, with the 100% humidity factored in, felt like 29° C (84.2° F) at 6:00 a.m. this morning. This is not my idea of Canadian weather! (Yes, I know, it's a lot hotter in the south, but that's why I moved up here.)