It is estimated that over 5% of the earth's land surface is covered by lichen and some have been alive for over 5000 years. Since beginning this project we have been interested to notice lichen growing everywhere, all around us, on walls and stones, pavements and trees, usually pale and unobtrusive but sometimes gloriously colourful.

This artwork is created on 3 layers, a primary, secondary and interactive layer.
To interact first use a key:
'v' for vertical;
'h' for horizontal;
'r' for round;
'l' for loose;
then click on the canvas and a patch of lichen will be drawn in the chosen style.

Clicking 'n' will create a new blank canvas to draw on.

Clicking 'y' will return to the original layers but you will need to reload in order to draw on this layer.

Clicking 'u' will delete the interactive layer and clicking again will delete the secondary layer.

To redraw it will be necessary to reload the artwork but clicking 'o' before drawing will allow you to draw on a new layer over the top of the existing work.

Keys 4, 5, 6 & 7 will render at larger sizes.

Most palettes are subtle and/or natural but there are 3 increasingly rare palettes, Rainbow, Monochrome and Golden.
Original artworks which include overlapping are also rare.