Week Three 07/27-08/03

Greetings and salutations. This week's sketches are plants with Game of Thrones in mind. Unfortunately, two of the plants I have no idea what they are called and I was not very successful with an internet search on what they are. However, I was more successful on the Game of Thrones research. I don't watch this show nor read the books, but I do know that these plants I believe are native to the desert here in Southeast Arizona and Northern Mexico (I forget what it is called at the moment). Based upon my research, I believe that these plants could be found or used in a place called Dorne.

Dorne is the southernmost of something called the Seven Kingdoms on the continent of Westeros (again, I don't read the books or watch the TV show so bear with me here). Dorne is also the hottest and most arid of the countries on this continent. Apparently it is rocky, mountainous, arid and dry. In fact, it is the only desert on the continent. This place sounds perfect for where these plants could be used.

Now actual uses in the series? I am not entirely for certain. I noticed that all of the plants are rather quite hardy, either very strong, tough or are quite hostile. Did you know that palm trees out here have thorns on the leaf stalks? I never noticed that before.

I can see these plants being used mainly for utilitarian uses such as firewood, fibers for weaving, leaves for shade, and the sort. Here's the plants that I found and sketched:

Mesquite Tree. Bark is very thick, dark and tough. Many tiny leaves to maximize surface area for photosynthesis. Seed pods quite large. They range from green to yellow.

Palm Tree. Leaves are bright green and very large and ridged. The stalks themselves are lined with thorns and the trunk appears to be made of older leaf stalks that have wrapped itself around the main trunk. Very weird.

I am not for certain what this plant is. However, it actually looks dangerous. It is a deep green with strange white threads curling out from the edges of the leaf blades. One of these plants had an ugly looking bulb on top that was tipped in dark red and then ranged from yellow to green in color. It didn't look very nice.

I believe this is a type of cactus or tree. The leaves have thorns lining them on the edges and they are arrayed in a radial pattern around the center. Older version of this plant have a strange stalk like thing rising high into the air. Unfortunately, I didn't see any older ones of this plant, so I couldn't sketch the variations.

Prickly Pear cactus. This one was unusual because it didn't have any thorns on it like others do. It actually had a large chip in one of the pears. I didn't have time to draw that in since it was getting rather dark and hard to see. Someone was telling me that a girl got shot here and the hole in the cactus was where the bullet went through it. Maybe that's why this particular specimen has no thorns either.

That's all for now. There will be no sketchbook update next week since it's time for midterms. Bye-bye! ^_^