Sketching Lichen

On my morning walk yesterday, I spotted a leafy lichen with interesting shaped leaves and colors  living on the end of a dead evergreen branch that had fallen from the tree.   My immediate thought was to bring it home for a sketching challenge.   I love to sketch lichen with all  the curly leaves and shapes that intertwine with each other leaving dark spaces of brown, gold and deep bluish green in the its depths.  There is also some long fingering lichen on the branch that makes it an interesting object.  The deer in our neighborhood eat everything except the lichen.  Maybe I should create a juice from the lichen to spray on all the plants in our yard to repel the deer from eating them.