Blue-footed booby Sketch in Galápagos

I just arrived from my last trip to Galapagos islands;

this is a watercolor painting on a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook

hope you like it!

Plains Lubber No1 - Laura Gillis

Jiminy Cricket! That is one big honkin’ grasshopper!

Ink and watercolor in the Moleskine Bug Journal

This is the Plains Lubber Grasshopper. And, yes, he really is THAT big. The body is almost 2 inches long. His thorax is .5 an inch wide and .5 an inch deep. Add those big, long legs and this guy makes an impression when he comes at you.

I found two of these bad boys munching on grass in the pasture the other day. There seems to be quite a bit of variation in the coloring on the Lubbers -- I loved the pink and green on this one.

I wonder how much grass this guy can consume in one day, or in his lifetime? I would think a few of these put together would do some serious damage to a pasture already stressed by drought. How many Lubbers equal the consumption of one mama cow? I bet somebody has done a study on that somewhere.

In the meantime, I will keep drawing them. This makes page 30 in the “Bug Journal” and there are still lots of bugs out there. 

David and Goliath - Laura Gillis

Ink and watercolor in the Moleskine Watercolor Journal

Are you ready to rummmmmmmbbbbbllllllee??!!

In lower left corner, we have the challenger, the little, cute, sorta-fuzzy Checkered Beetle measuring only 3/4 of an inch long.

And in upper right corner, towering above the competition, we have the big honkin’, root boring, Pironus Beetle, measuring a whopping 1-3/4 inches (not including the feathery antenna).

Ding! There’s the bell.

I never would have guessed it, but in my research to identify these two, I discovered that the Checkered Beetle attacks and eats the Pironus beetle at all stages of their life cycle. Eggs, larvae and adult.

This is a good thing because the big beetle is a root borer and the larval stage of this beetle can cause much damage and grief to hardwood trees.

I found both of these beetles within hours of each other. The Checkered Beetle was in the front yard, but the Pironus had come into the garage and was lying in front of the washer with his feet up in the air.

He was down for the count.

Ding! We have a winner!

Buggy about Bugs: My First Post

I love to closely examine natural forms. Nature objects, picked up on walks, are scattered about my house. Sometimes I'm moved to draw them. I have followed and admired this blog for quite awhile, enjoying what other nature lover/artists focus on. I am excited to have the opportunity to share my apropos work here.  I post all my work, as it comes forth, here.

I found this bit of wasp nest on a trail that borders the Cedar River, not too far from my house, in Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA.  It prompted this drawing, done in a collaborative sketchbook for  moly_x_international. It's in Masha Kirikova's, theme book, Those Who Live. Masha (from Moscow) is also a contributor to this blog.

pencil and colored pencil in a Japanese-fold Moleskine

In my basement, I found an old collection of insects my daughter had put in a shadowbox for a junior high school science project. (She's now in her 20s!). It was fascinating to examine what specimens were still intact and to draw them.

watercolor and pencil in pocket-size watercolor Moleskine

Eucalyptus - Alissa Duke

Royal Botanic Gardnen- Sydney .

Eucalyptus maidenii, commonly known as Maiden's Gum, is a Eucalypt species native to eastern Victoria and southeastern New South Wales, Australia. It was named after the Director of the Royal Botanic Garden (1896 - 1924)

It grows up to 75 m tall. Its most distinctive and lovely feature is the bark that sheds to ground level, leaving smooth grey-white and smooth trunk. I love this texture and character this one has

The leaves are 15 to 25 cm long and when they a fall from the tree turn colour on the ground and,can be an assortment of wonderfully bright colours. But they are green on the tree.

I've been collecting and drawing gum leaves from this tree for an exhibition that is part of the upcoming Sydney Royal Botanic Garden Sketchabout . We also have a blog and I invite you to link on the site to "follow us on Google"

watercolour pencil and ink

A very cold cardinal

Although the weather should be improving this week, the last few days were the coldest of the winter. With fluffed up feathers the birds flocked to the feeders and this cardinal paused outside my bedroom window long enough for me to snap a photo. I did this sketch in my moleskine with Flame Red and Sepia FW ink and a crowquill pen, Derwent watercolor pencils and Winsor & Newton gouache.

Dragonfly & weevil - Laura Gillis

I have a couple of bugs today... a Twelve Spotted Skimmer dragonfly and a Boll Weevil. The boll weevil is pretty surprising since they started the Boll Weevil Eradication Project in our area a few years ago and we're not supposed to have those any more. We don't have any cotton fields very close to us so I am not sure how it got to our house. I was in cotton country on the weekend and maybe it hitched a ride in my car or something like that... who knows?

I really don't think the BW Eradication Project is a good thing. When they spray to eradicate the weevils, what other beneficial insects are they killing at the same time? Will we wake up in 50 years and have to start re-introducing weevils like we have had to do with the wolves? Okay, that might be an extreme example but I do fear that we are killing off other insects that have benefits that we don't know about yet. But, they are probably working on another new chemical to spray that will make up for the unknown... (sorry, didn't mean to get on my soap box!)

It's a tough argument when you live in a family of cotton farmers but maybe they will be out farming and not reading my blog. ha!

Ink & Watercolor in the Moleskine Watercolor Journal

Long-horned Grasshopper

Things are still really crazy around here but I did make time for this big honkin' bug. I think it is a long-horned Grasshopper but I am not totally sure about that. I do know that she (or he) is really big! I don't know if the "long-horned" refers to the back with the sword-like ovipositor or the front and the very long fine antennae. Either way, both are long. She had no wings that I could see. I found her in a bar ditch in some tall grass. Oh, and these things can bite surprisingly hard! Who knew art could be so dangerous? ha!

Ink & watercolor in the Moleskine watercolor journal.

Bird and Hawk

For those of you that are squeamish, be aware that this is a study of a dead bird that
I found it in the backyard lying on its back.

I ran for my sketchbook because this subject was the perfect model, he wasn't going to move. I once saw Cathy Johnson include a sketch of something dead in her book and decided this was one of those great opportunities for a nature sketch.

The bird looks young and I am thinking it may be in the Thrush family with it's coloring and long pointy beak. I could not see any evidence of obvious injury and am not sure what killed it.

However, I saw this young hawk bathing in my ground-set birdbath right near where I found the dead bird. My husband said a hawk would not just kill something unless they eat it.
Does anyone know what kind of hawk this is?

I am thinking it is a Cooper's Hawk.