I'm not sure how, but it is time again for our monthly Art Elements Insect COM Reveal! This months challenge was hosted by the very talented Diana Ptaszynski and oh I had so many ideas! First off I was going to needle felt this little ancient fairy/moth guy....
But it turns out this was a lot header then I thought it would be! But no problem, instead I would go on a bug hunt for some inspiration and I managed to find and photo these little beauties.
Really cute little jewel coloured beetle that lucky for me landed on my daughters beautiful golden hair.
And I got really lucky and stumbled upon this amazing stag beetle. I only ever see one, maybe two of these a year at most but this one had amazing timing!
Finding and photographing insects is surprisingly difficult, on the beautiful sunny days there were so many stunning dragonflies, busy bee's and fluttering butterflies around the local ponds but oh my they were uncooperative and hard to photo (much respect to all those wonderful nature photographers out there) but this little guy, well he was an utter star! the dark parts of his wings were a shimmery gold and the white had a stunning mother of pearl sheen plus he stayed still long enough for a rather artsy shot!
My next idea was to paint a very abstract butterfly a lot like my mixed media mandalas but with a butterfly focal, but try as I might I could just not get the colours right (so instead I sulked). Oh and then there were all those beautiful lampwork insect beads that I intended to wire wrap, yeah that did not happen either! So with time running out I got out my trusty cabs and started playing!
Something that not many people know about me is that I am scared stiff of butterflies! Yes they are beautiful stunning creatures but they really have it in for me and they just dive bomb me! So this one time when I was accidentally purposely lead into the butterfly tent at London Zoo (by my mean other half who likes to push me out of my comfort zone for his own entertainment) I got chatting to the insect keeper on the way out that had noticed my discomfort and explained that the butterflies were probably attracted to the salt in my sweat so it's a no win situation, I see one, it makes me sweat and then they try to lick me!
Still with butterflies in mind I looked through my cab stash and came across a stunning ammolite cab that my wonderful and kind friend Kathryn had sent me and it was just perfect! The colours reminded me of the blue morpho butterfly as it has the same kind of sheen, and here is what I made....
I kept the design very simple, it has a hidden tube bail on the back and the stone (and ball) is set in 18ct gold for a little contrast....
It is not quiet finished as I plan to hang it on a 2mm sterling chocker with a few tiny butterflies fluttering up the side and maybe a little more gold?
I love the colours in this stone. Blue, green and purple are my favourite colour combo.
Please do join me hoping around to see what everyone else created!
Guests
Art Elements Team
