quinacridone

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18464437

See more at [email protected]

Main image Criccieth, the breakers of dawn

Above, Stanage Sunset

Above, Green Cathedral

Above, Old Man of Storr, Skye

Above, Durdle Door

Above, Venetian Overture

Above, Buxton, the greens of summer

His website

Main image 'The Struggle Lake District'

Above 'Morning Sun, Silverdale Beach'

Above, 'Morning Shadows'

Above, 'Mist Over Bowfell, Lake District'

Above, 'Autumn Shadows, Peak District'

Above, 'Summer Sun Arnside'

Above, 'Sunset, South Lakes'

Above, 'Autumn Shadows, North Pennines'

Above, 'Morning Light, South Lakes'

Above, 'Fingland Wood, Cumbria'

Above, 'Evening Shadows'

Above, 'Evening Light, North Pennines'

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Above, 'Autumn Sun, North Pennines'

All images from her website, and here

Main Image- The Legendary Peveril

Ben Ark – Mixed Media Artist based in Salford

Ben’s style deliberately slips from precise photorealistic detail to less defined washes of colour. He uses a balance of detail, symmetry and movement to create artworks largely featuring contemporary landscapes and urban culture in the North West of England.

The City Road Inn

An Exotic Blend

The White Lion Manchester

The Deansgate

Everything Changes But You

The Life Cycle

...last tram home.....

Where the Journey Began

All found here and his website

Main image 'Storm Clouds Over Criffel Hill, Solway'

Above 'Mountain Mist, Isle of Skye'

Above 'Morning light, Scottish Highlands'

Above 'Sunset Silloth on Solway'

Above 'Sunset Silloth on Solway'

Above 'Sunset Outer Hebrides'

Above 'Storm clouds over Isle of Harris Scotland'

Above 'Mountain mist Isle of Skye'

Above 'Luskentyre Beach Isle of Harris'

Above 'After the Storm, Isle of Skye'

Above 'Evening Reflections, Western Isles'

Above 'Autumn Mist, Isle of Skye'

Above 'After the Storm, Isle of Skye'

Her website

edit, now with expanded images!

Found this delight on Rightmove today!

Elegance personified.....

Coco Chanel would have loved to see her logo on a toilet lid

I think there's a fridge freezer in the bedroom???

I don't know what this thing is

Main photo 'After the Storm, Oxford Street, Manchester'

Janet Kenyon is a multi-award winning water colour artist hailing from Bolton, in North West England.

She began experimenting in water colour whilst studying for her degree at Leeds Polytechnic, where she achieved a BA Hons in Graphic Design.

Her experimental approach continues to push the boundaries of this medium, capturing both natural and artificial light and its interaction with the landscape.

In this post I want to show off her work from my neck of the woods ..... 'sunny' Manchester, and the rather grim, rundown seaside town of Blackpool, famous for its 'Illuminations' where the seafront is decorated with festive lights....

Above- 'The Principal, Manchester'

I enjoy the challenge of painting in watercolour because it's not the easiest of mediums, there's a lot of trial and error which makes it all the more rewarding when it does work out..... source

Above- 'Urban Light, Peter Street, Manchester'

Above- Evening Light, Printworks, Manchester'

[She] is interested in capturing those hidden moments of tranquility or ‘pockets of space‘ .....that exist within the hustle and bustle of a modern-day city.... source

Above- 'Evening Light, Oxford Street, Manchester'

Above- 'After the Storm, Oxford Street, Manchester'

'In my paintings I love to explore the different qualities of light, and through much experimenting over the years, I’m still developing my technique. The method I use to capture light, in my paintings, is the same whether it’s natural or artificial and is made up of many watercolour layers. To achieve this I use clear wax to mask off certain areas and lots of water and repeat this many times over. The highlights in my daytime scenes and the artificial lights in my night time scenes are the first areas to be masked off, then the process of applying and removing the watercolour starts.' source

Above- 'Urban Light, Oxford Street, Manchester'

Above- 'The Palace Theatre, Oxford Street, Manchester'

'....I particularly love the challenge I get from painting cityscapes, the shapes, structures and the space between with each city presenting it’s own unique qualities of scale and layout.' source

Above- 'Northern Edge, Manchester'

Above- The Opera House, Manchester'

'There’s still so many cities I’d like to paint one of them being the city of Reykjavik, Iceland which I’m visiting at the end of February, for a few days: hopefully the light will be good as I’m looking to gather as much information as I can for future paintings.' source

....and not forgetting our own Aurora Borealis of The North, Blackpool!!

Above- 'The Golden Mile, Blackpool'

Above- 'Northern Lights, Blackpool'

All work by Janet Kenyon, from her website, and here

I am intending to post some more of her work probably next week..... either her other cityscapes or landscapes (which are amazing!)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15288452

If you like this post check out [email protected]

Main photo, etching Neilltuad

I visited an exhibition recently at Oriel Plas Glyn Y Weddw in Llanbedrog, North Wales, showing some of his work.

It was unfortunately a retrospective exhibition as he died not that long after the opening

...[The exhibition] celebrates the career of Berwyn Jones and includes a range of works produced during a period of nearly 40 years through many mediums.

Born in Llanbedrog in 1942.... [he] established himself as a self-employed artist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, making a series of small woodcuts mainly of Llŷn landscapes. [Llŷn Peninsula, North West Wales]

In the 1970s he turned his hand to pottery and built an oil-fired kiln. Janet, his future wife, joined him as an Apprentice in 1974 and this began a productive period of creating pottery....

....In 1984 he bought an engraving press which led to the creation of a series of engravings, mainly of local landscapes and seascapes. Then, in 1994 he turned his sights once again to painting oil on canvas creating works such as 'Yn y Berllan' and 'Hen Sugn, Hen Dai'.... Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw

I have to admit I didn't like the pottery, it was a bit too Bernard Leach country pottery- serviceable but not aesthetically pleasing, and also his abstracts weren't working for me....

The woodcuts were a bit too 1960's colour theme and somewhat 'clunky' in the carving

I did however love the etchings! I was particularly drawn to the etchings featuring water or sand ripples.

Also of interest for me were examples of his work sketches and planning for the etchings, including the different plates with colour layers, plus ink samples

Below is a small collection of the etchings, and some of the better wood carvings....

Twlldan Grisia....(A massive favourite of mine, and featuring in the work planning sketches that accompanied the exhibition)

Towyn

Llwybr Llymriaid.....(if I had the money I would have bought this, I really loved the depth of colour)

Garreg Fawr

Bwlch Coch.....(Again another favourite, and featured in the work plan sketches)

Haul Gaerau

Bwlch

Tany Fron

Now some of the wood cuts....

Deuglawdd....(I do actually like this, and the colours aren't too 1960's)

Pengarreg....(Holy 1960's Batman!! Seriously though, there is a charm about it, and I think it turned out well)

Ochor ‘Mynydd'.....(this one has an almost 3d type effect with the colours, especially the sky)

Enlli....(A bit too 1960's but I know the location, so it gets a pass)

All work by Berwyn Jones, and quotes via Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw

Any opinions are mine and please checkout the website for the rest of the etchings and wood cuts!

On the 9 June 2023, at Mala, Karkala, Karnataka, India, researchers found Rao’s intermediate golden-backed frog, (Hylarana intermedia) with a rather fetching, fungal companion growing out of it's side

Mycologists identified the fungi as Common Bonnet, part of the Mycena genus, a type of fungi that mostly grows on rotting wood from dead trees, however it has also been discovered to be able to thrive on living plants as well

The frog appeared to be quite healthy and was not caught, so there's no definitive answer why it was hosting a mushroom, however...

...one of the possibilities is that there is a small piece of woody debris under the skin of the frog after it got lodged in the skin and it has sprouted a mushroom from it....

All info from here and here

All photos by Lohit Y.T. one of the researchers who discovered the frog and co-author of the paper

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13639864

https://mander.xyz/c/invertebrates

[email protected]

Sphaerotheriida, Karnataka, India, photo by vipin.baliga

https://mander.xyz/c/invertebrates

Sphaerotheriida, Karnataka, India, photo by vipin.baliga

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13518835

Main photo 'Camponotus atriceps infected by Ophiocordyceps camponoti-atricipis, biting onto a leaf edge' by João P. M. Araújo

You've probably played and/or seen 'The Last of Us' and the cordyceps infected humans....which is completely fictional. However, for insects becoming infected by a zombie fungus is a rather horrifying realty, and also incredibly fascinating for us to observe

Ants are targeted by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sl, aka the zombie ant fungus, which is found mostly in the tropics, and was first discovered by Alfred Russell Wallace in 1859

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sl, represents a whole complex of many species within O. unilateralis, all of which are host specific, infecting and manipulating carpenter ants. Although researches have recently discovered additional O. unilateralis species that specialise in neotropical ants and have described them as O. kniphofioides subclade.

These are all the O. unilateralis described so far

O. albacongiuae
O. blakebarnesii
O. camponoti-atricipis
O. camponoti-balzani
O. camponoti-bispinosi
O. camponoti-chartificis
O. camponoti-femorati
O. camponoti-floridani
O. camponoti-hippocrepidis
O. camponoti-indiani
O. camponoti-leonardi
O. camponoti- melanotic
O. camponoti-nidulantis
O. camponoti-novogranadensis
O. camponoti-renggeri
O. camponoti-saundersi
O. halabalaensis
O. kimflemingiae
O. naomipierceae
O. ootakii
O. polyrhachis-furcata
O. pulvinata
O. rami
O. satoi

And the following are from the O. kniphofioides subclade

O. daceti
O. kniphofioides

That's a lot of different zombie ants!!

The O. unilateralis fungus has very distinctive characteristics

exhibits a single stroma with a Hirsutella asexual morph, which arises from the dorsal neck region of the dead ant and produces a dark brown perithecia attached to its stalk

As well as only infecting the Camponotini species (Carpenter Ant), the fungus also causes the ant to fix itself to vegetation by clamping down via it's mandibles aka 'the death grip'

O. kniphofioides on the other hand

produce a stroma that grows laterally from the host's thorax which itself generates an orange ascoma [fruiting body, usually bowl shaped]

With O. kniphofioides the infected ants do not show the 'death grip' and typically die at the base of large trees in the Amazon, amongst moss carpets

In the tropics the ant species Camponotus leonardi lives in the tree canopies and had aerial trails on the branches, they will travel down the tree trucks and cross the forest floor when the gaps in the canopy are too wide to navigate. It is here they are infected by the fungal spores

The spores attach to their exoskeletons and break through using both mechanical pressure and enzymes. Yeast stages of the fungal infection spread throughout the ants body causing it to have full body convulsions that make it fall from the canopy to the forest floor.

The ant then climbs up the stem of a plant , and clamps itself to a leaf it using it's mandibles (usually 26cm above the floor on the Northern side of the plant, in a location with 94–95% humidity and temperatures between 20 and 30 °C). This is the optimal location and environment to produce the maximum infections (up to 20 to 30 dead ants per square meter) If the dead ant is moved elsewhere the fungal growth and spores released either fail to occur or are undersized

The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow inside it's body, until mycelia sprout from the ant's exoskeleton anchoring the ant further to the plant leaf/stem and

secreting antimicrobials to ward off competition

When the fungus is ready to reproduce it's fruiting bodies grow and erupt from the ant's head....the whole process takes around 4-10 days

And now for some dead ants.....

Ophiocordyceps kimflemingiae by Danny Newman

Ophiocordyceps albacongiuae by Danny Newman

Ophiocordyceps camponoti-renggeri by João P. M. Araújo

O. camponoti-floridani by Roel Fleuren

Ophiocordyceps ootakii here

Ophiocordyceps camponoti-indiani by joaofungo

Ophiocordyceps pulvinata here

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infecting Formicidae here

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis growing from a carpenter ant by David Hughes

Palthotyreus tarsatus biting onto a green stem. Once infected by an Ophiocordyceps species (still undescribed) by João P. M. Araújo

Apologies I can't remember where I found this one, but it's too good not to share....If anyone knows the photographer let me know in the comments and I'll edit. Cheers

All info and quotes via wikipedia

I'm not an expert, I just like sharing interesting things I find. Any errors please post a comment and I'll edit..... and as always please leave a comment as it gives me encouragement to do further posts 👍

Ophiocordyceps clavulata is a fungi parasite of scale insects feeding on trees including Pignut Hickory and American Hazel. It grows up to 4 mm

From the very limited information on the internet it's usual habitat is North America and Canada, but has also been recorded in Sweden

All photos via eol

All info via eol and here

Any corrections please post in comments and I'll edit my post