Psychoactive plants illustrated

Inspired by Josep Lluís Berdonces i Serra’s Guía de las plantas psicoactivas, here’s our own short guide to ten common psychoactive plants and one famous psychedelic mushroom. It’s just a sample, you understand. Click on “more photos” links under each image to get more Tamara’s pictures from Shutterstock.

1. Amanita muscaria, fly agaric, amanita matamoscas, мухомор красный. Main psychoactive compounds: muscimol, ibotenic acid.



Fly agaric (more photos)

growing basil and other things

Those are tiny basil plants that are now growing in a pot on our sunroof. I am surprised - I thought when bringing them outside that they might not be happy about so much sun. It appears I was totally wrong.

Unrelated pics follow

We finally found a way of planting our plastic windroses wherever we want. All you need is a large-ish volcanic stone with a through hole from a local beach. We are probably not meant to remove "beach material" here either, but every single garden I looked into uses those stones, so I guess it's ok.

More unrelated pics below

forest elf

Not sure if the results are to everyone's liking, but I had fun with this picture. Hair proved to be a bit of a challenge, with only Photoshop Elements at my disposal (if I understand correctly, it's a lot easier to make custom intelligent brush in fully fledged Photoshop, but I don't have that)
Actually, I know that results are not to everyone's liking - the model made a face when he saw it. He graciously agreed that it's ok since nobody should be able to recognize him (or so he thinks, anyway)

you can see the entry into POTY competition here. Feel free to vote and/or leave a comment

this image at shutterstock

iguana again

ok, it had to be done. It's not the exact tracing of the drawing by Timur, but it is close and got his approval. When we get to do henna tattoos again, I will try this one for sure.

and a variation on the theme

una iguana se cayó de arriba de una escalera

School holidays are finally upon us and a lot of school project work came home over the last few days.

and here is Timur's T-shirt with iguana. I thought they were two iguanas, but no, its a reflection in a stream. and sure, he didn't get the optics right here, but the way he uses available space amazes me. I wish I can do as good as he does now. Of course he might loose this graphic freedom at some point (Yuri did, according to himself "I can't draw as good as before any more"), but I right now he's very good.





as to the title - no, this particular iguana didn't fall off any stairs, I just like this song

carnival crown

There was a Carribean topic in Timur's school going for a while (so he kept asking me if we can go to Barbados or Dominica for our hols, hmmm). As the high point they had a carnival parade together with another school. It happened on on school grounds, so it wasn't a public event, unfortunately, because it seems that kids and teachers and helpers produces some very nice artwork for the parade, including some huge animals made of colorful paper on some sort of 3d-carcass. I only saw a giraffe, because it apparently didn't fit into the school hall (which gives an idea of the size), it was very impressive.

Above is the carnival crown the Timur made and decorated for himself. He is fascinated by the sea turtle motif for a goodish while already and here it is on the central "feather" of the crown






and another one, from the headband (oil crayons clearly don't draw very well on metallic paper, but still)



also, octopus motif in the center of headband was one of his favourite drawing subjects for a while, ever since they did a celtic topic

Carnival pics on shutterstock - here 

harmony

Friendsfeed at livejournal brought me an absolutely delightful online drawing tool called harmony - http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/#sketchy
(if server is not working, it's because everybody's passing on this link, just wait for a bit).

I freely admit that I spent unreasonable amount of time drawing things. Shame it doesn't allow to save a hi-res image, but never mind the usefulness, eh

Having a graphic tablet helps, but mouse's good too.

drawing hair

had a go at drawing hair in illustrator. doesn't really work, but then, what with being green, those hair probably had no chance on being convincing anyway. face is more or less modelled on Timur's (compare with )this picture), although proportions changed to make it less child-like

I think I did a lot better with drawing hair with watercolor. Still, I am quite pleased

full frame at fotolia

celtic octopus

Timur is studying all things celtic at school at the moment. As a result, he got fascinated by celtic patterns and knotworks and produced dozens of his own drawing, celtic-y in various degrees, some better than others. But I think this celtic octopus is the best. Timur clearly figured that it's an animal made for knotwork. Maybe I should ask him to produce jellyfish (man-o-war type), too, and some seaweed for an epic "celtic aquarium" set

here is the central element, quickly vector-traced



Timur's drawings and Timur's drawing on shutterstock

dragon

I've tried to teach Timur "wet-into-wet-on-limited-area" technique (see example here).
He watched with interest, nodded wisely, said that he understood everything and then produced this dragon - that has nothing to do with the technique, but is very pic in his very own style.