Canadian textures

We are in Canada visiting relatives. I haven't been doing my sketchbook every day, which has resulted in my losing the creative head that I have lived with and enjoyed for the last 6 weeks. What I mean is that when I was doing it every day I felt inspired by many things every day, noticed more, and tended to wake up with new ideas about what I was doing or could do. The loss of this has shown me how powerful the sketchbook is as a tool and trigger for inspiration.

I have been able to take some photos of things that struck me as being interesting to look at, that I will be adding to my collection at home. Some of them are here.

A snail trail on an old wooden step in Madison Avenue, Toronto.
I like the way the grain of the wood is revealed 'negatively' in all its detail by the passage of the snail.
It reminds me of Turkish painting because of the unexpected level of detail. 

A rock in the very clear green water of Georgian Bay.
I liked the combination of the shapes and colours of the rocks, and the distortion of the waves overlaid.
And the colours add another layer of subtelty.

I am standing on a block of concrete in Kelso Beach Park in Owen Sound, Ontario.
 I found the swirling waves of parallel lines kept me fascinated,
and the vertical lines superimposed on them were surprising
and looked 3 D even though they I knew they were not.

The gusts of wind add an extra layer of ripples to Lake Huron, making it look like elephant skin.

This plant had leaves that lined up evenly along the branches
at the same angle as the one above so they looked almost artificial.

Lichen on a wall.
As a result of the last few exercises in creating textures on this course,
I am interested in what happens at the transitions between textured areas.
This photo and the rock surface below are photos I took as examples of this
for me to use in my workbook to work on this.  

Surface of a rock beside the boat launch at Big Bay, Ontario.