# One mushroom, tilted so the underside shows

> A chanterelle drawn enormous and tilted to show its ridges rather than its cap argues that scale here does an identifying job, not just a decorative one.

August 19, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/chanterelle-in-a-hand

One chanterelle, cream and ochre, drawn the size of a forearm. The cap is tilted back on its
twisted stem so the underside faces out. No text, no label, nothing else on the shirt.

It's tilted for a reason. The underside is the part that tells you what you've actually found.

## Why show the underside instead of the cap?

Because the cap looks like several other mushrooms and the underside doesn't.

A chanterelle from above is a funnel-shaped, apricot-coloured cap, and that description also fits
the false chanterelle and, in poor light, one or two things you'd rather not eat. Turn it over and
the resemblance stops: a true chanterelle has blunt, forking ridges running down into the stem,
not true gills. It's the single detail a forager actually checks, and it's the one this design
chooses to put in front.

## Why draw it this large?

Because at this size the ridges are still visible from across a room, which is the whole point of
having them on a shirt at all.

A small print of a mushroom is a decoration; drawn forearm-sized, the fork-and-ridge pattern
survives being reduced to a few confident lines and still reads as itself rather than as a smudge.
[Scale doing identifying work rather than merely graphic work](/stories/pike-life-size) is
rare in this set — most of these designs are big because big is what suits the subject, and this
one happens to also be big because that's what makes the detail legible.

## Is a tilted mushroom a strange thing to put on a shirt?

Less strange than a mushroom shown the way nobody ever actually holds one.

Anyone who has picked chanterelles has tilted one back exactly like this, checking the underside
before it goes in the basket. The pose isn't invented for the drawing — it's the pose the object
gets put in a hundred times a season by anyone who forages seriously, which is why it reads as
correct rather than staged.

## Does the same idea work for other mushrooms?

Some. A few common species are recognisable purely by silhouette and colour — a fly agaric's
red cap and white spots, a giant puffball's plain dome — and those can be drawn face-on without
losing anything. Others, chanterelles among them, are only reliably told apart by a feature on the
underside or the stem, and for those, the same logic applies: draw the part that actually confirms
it, not the part that photographs best.

## Does anybody own the right to a mushroom?

No. A species belongs to nobody, and a drawing of one is your drawing, the same as any other
living thing in [this set](/stories/red-stag-portrait). What can belong to somebody is a
specific photograph somebody else took of a specific mushroom in a specific wood — if a real
photograph is the reference, getting the photographer's permission is part of the job, the same
as it would be for any other picture you didn't take yourself.

## Is this only for people who forage?

No, though it reads immediately to anyone who does. A person who has never picked a wild mushroom
still recognises a chanterelle's shape and colour, and the tilt reads as care even without knowing
what it's for. It works both ways: a private nod to somebody who forages, or a plain, well-drawn
mushroom to somebody who doesn't. [The same overlap comes up with a leaf pared down to its
essentials](/stories/oak-leaf-and-acorn-mark) — the detail rewards knowing, without requiring
it.

## Does it print well?

Yes, in two flat colours with no gradient between them.

The cream of the flesh and the ochre of the ridges hold as separate blocks rather than a blend,
which is exactly how the original tilt-and-check pose separates the two surfaces anyway. The
ridge lines want to be fewer and slightly heavier than a botanical illustration would draw them —
enough to read as ridges from a few feet away, not so fine they fill in on the weave. Moss green
or a warm brown both suit the palette; a stark white shirt fights the ochre rather than setting
it off.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the mushroom at [JustOG](/) — species, how it's held, and how much of the underside
should show. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and
it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

One mushroom, turned over, checked, and printed exactly as it looked in the hand.