Wednesday, February 29, 2012

insects and beetles

For Christmas I was given a box of feathers, leaves, a nest, seed pods and a few beetles. In the last few days I have finally put aside time to draw some of them (in watercolour pencil in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook) .

Unfortunately I am unable to provide very much technical information about them.I can tell you they were collected in Toowoomba, Queensland,Australia, probably along suburban footpaths, waterbird habitat or my mothers backyard !

This top page is what I always called a Stag Beetle. I have found out they are part of Rhinocerous Beetle family which covers many similar looking beetles with varying degrees of spiky and spiny features.




This second page has a few mysterious small black and brown insects. I know the highly un-technical name of the "click beetle" (middle left) which (when we were children) we used to put our finger on their back they would click and jump . The green cicada is also a familiar insect . Maybe the one above it is a Christmas beetle ???

I really enjoyed drawing ( or is it painting?) these. I also wanted to write all over it with notes. I have kept most of the beetles and bugs to draw again another day....

7 comments:

  1. I am excited by these studies--they are detailed but not tight renderings, which amazes me because that has to be difficult to achieve. The cicadas are like jewels. Thanks for posting

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  2. wonderful pages!! and what a christmas present.

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  3. Hello Alissa
    Congratulations on the advantage you´ve got from these insects.

    Regards

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  4. These are incredible Alissa! I, too, love that this box of goodies was a Christmas present. Someone knows you well I think. I expect all of us on this blog would love that kind of present. I once got a box of rocks from the California coast as a birthday present--free rocks, but the postage to Virginia was astronomical!

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  5. So amazingly lifelike! I can't believe you did these with watercolor pencil...and what a wonderful present!

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  6. Thanks for your comments. It is always lovely to see what other people think.
    It WAS an amazing Christmas gift. I did hint rather heavily that this was the sort of present I would like. This way, no one had to spend any money (unlike posting rocks across the States Paula) and my mother, brother, niece and nephew had a great time looking for things to put in the box).

    CrankyBird Studio and Kate - I think that my drawings (or are they paintings?) give the impression of detail, without drawing any actual detail. I used my watercolour pencils on the paper and then a brush. I then took colour off the tip of the brush , and finally added w/c pencil on the paper for 'detail".

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  7. Very natural fresh drawing and...alive

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