Slash pine cone

Slash pine cone, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

Bah, humbug! Because of a bad cold, the flu, or maybe even allergies I haven’t been sketching as much, and missed my weekend trip to paint outdoors. Since I was confined inside and resting, I thought I’d tackle the intricacies of this pine cone. This cone is from a slash pine tree in our yard, probably left there when the house was built.

I believe that the existing habitat in our immediate area was a mixture of pine flatwoods and palmetto, with the beginnings of live oak encroachment on the edges and a few scrubby regions. You can see the pattern of mature trees in the surrounding residential neighborhood and a nearby golf course.

An interesting thing about pine cones is the pattern the scales make as they spiral around the core. Needless to say, this pleasing pattern is a pain to draw! I ended up scanning the actual pine cone and mapping out the spirals in Photoshop to get them right (see photo below).  I knew that many spiral patterns in nature are related to the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, but had to do a bit of research to investigate why. In my pine cone, there is one set of 5 spirals (the white lines) and one set of 8 spirals (the green lines); both are sequential numbers in the Fibonacci series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…).

I found this interesting web site about pine cones and the Fibonnaci numbers. They show the same spiral overlays to count that I resorted to using – with an interactive twist. They mention an insight as to why cones and other structures may develop this way: since Fibonnaci numbers are a close approximation to irrational numbers, the scales (which cover the seeds inside) will not line up with one another, thus making the cone stronger.

You can click on the top image to view it larger on my Flickr photostream!

More things from my yard!

More things from my yard!, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

The previous drawing was so much fun that I did another!  The squirrels have been busy with the slash pine cones as well as the live oak acorns.  This cone is fairly small, and just starting to open up.  The faded and battered Tillandsia bloom spike hung on all year until I snipped it off to draw, it must have some tough fibers in it.  It is already sporting new bloom spikes, they'll provide me with a bit of bright red color soon.

The marlberry fruit is ripening unevenly, with some wonderful color variations from green to rose to violet to purple-black.  They're eaten by various birds and other wildlife.  I've read that they are edible for humans, but have never tried it out; maybe a little research is in order!  The dried flowers of the golden dewdrop were probably damaged by our frosts.  They are a lovely purplish-brown in this state, but I'm not sure I captured it very well.


You can click on the image above to view it larger on my Flickr photostream.

Remains of summer

Remains of summer, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

Well, I guess I should say that these are remains of a southwest Florida summer. Our few deciduous trees don’t usually lose their leaves until sometime in November or December, and we don’t have the grand color change of more northern areas. Instead, our changes are subtle.

The Live Oak trees in our neighborhood are producing a healthy crop of acorns, and soon we’ll be seeing pockmarks in the dirt as the squirrels stock up for lean times. They’ve been tearing off the scales of the Slash Pine cones to get at the seeds, leaving a bristly inner core of a rich burnt sienna color.

More and more bird flocks are traveling in the skies, the goldenrod is blooming on the roadsides, and the wheel turns once more.

You can click on the image above to view it larger on my Flickr photostream.