I’ve Got a Little List…

Now that I have an idea of what it’s going to take to go from plant to sketch to hand-drawn chart to finished chart, I need to decided what to do next.  Cue the new little notebook, nice pen.  There are lists to be made!  (I’ve included links to some virtual field trips for you, so it’s not just a barrage of words.)

I really want to do a long banner-like piece with some of the overlooked spring flowers.

That… That is a lot of plants.

You might think I’d want to jump right in with showy paintbrushes and bluebonnets and the other spring show-stoppers, but those have been done.  Many times, by many people.   Still, if I ever run out of ideas, I may come back to this list, or pull a few of them for the other spring banner:

The tiny bluets will be wanting company:

Can’t forget the plants of Lick Creek Park.

And I have so many pleasant memories of the bogs in Leon County.

Not to mention mucking about in wet ditches.

I managed to think of some favorite plants from the outcrop in Grimes County where the plant I named grows.

Now, these lists may not all end up as large pieces, with multiple plants per design, but they do form coherent assemblages.  I can make individual designs or multi-plant designs.  I had probably come up with a standard set of symbols, though, or when I start combining individual charts into bigger ones, there is going to be a ton of confusion.

There are some plants from Uvalde County that are worth immortalizing in thread.

Oh!  And sandy bits around those Leon County bogs have some fun plants too:

“Gaillardia amblyodon” is just fun to say.

I ought not forget the fall wildflowers–though climate change has half of these blooming in the summer now.

I think it would be fun to do a big panel with nothing but members of the bean family.

And if beans, why not mints?  Mints are nifty.

There should be a Trans-Pecos list too, at some point.  And you’ll notice there aren’t any trees and shrubs.  That’s a whole ‘nother ball game.

Ack.  What a lot of names.  You know what I’ve done, don’t you?  I’ve terrified myself with the sheer scope of this project, and now I’m to paralyzed to begin.  There are easier projects to hand, like that vegetable quilt, the Portuguese rug I’m charting from photos, and any number of partially-completed cross-stitch pieces…

Stop!  Breathe, Monique.  Just pick a plant that calls to you and draw the darned thing.