OniOniOniArt

It's been a while! I needn't tell anyone this has been a crazy year (I think everyone is going to remember 2020), but besides the craziness of the world beyond, it has personally been a crazy year for other reasons. Namely, the Maine farm mentioned HERE and HERE  is now finally ours. It's been nearly a year long process and gut-wrenching to say the least. We visited the property last week, and it is in need of much work - it is currently nearly gutted. So we'll be in Florida a while longer while we work on that. It's going to be a slow transition, but we consider ourselves very lucky! Actually, we're very lucky for many reasons looking back over the general tumult of the year.... The lizards above - green anole pencil drawings and their inked counterparts on watercolor paper - are all part of a little project I'm working on. I will update this post as I complete more of it.

My Hubs made a Friday 13th meme with my cat Damien I have not totally accepted defeat for this art challenge I imposed on myself, but I have fallen hopelessly behind at this point to where I can't make up the days because there are too many! My hubs and I have been searching every avenue to make the Maine farm a reality, house hunting around FL as a back-up plan, and I need to make more cats for the shop because we need to boost our income. All of this is to say I haven't been able to keep up with Bug-A-Day. I will, however, pick things back up again once our housing situation settles, and after I make some non-bug related things for the etsy shop. Need to diversify for a bit :3 [Friday, March 13, 2020]

Using the same methods as for the beetles in this post for Days 59 - 61 , I've made outlines of hoppers, (oak treehopper and candystripe leafhopper), with a brush pen, painted them with watercolors, and then masked them off for a splatter paint background. Day 64: Brushed Oak Treehopper The outlines are basically pen sketches. I don't do any pencil work first with the brush pen, so there is always a bit of a wonky look to them because I can't erase anything! This has the benefit of not needing to transfer a drawing onto the paper which can be time consuming (drawing with pencil directly on watercolor paper is not ideal because erasers can shred the surface). So the drawing is a bit more organic and less accurate! Day 65: Brushed Candystripe Leafhopper Day 66: Color & Splatter oak treehopper gets its minty fresh hue (I did add a light pencil line to help with the striping...) Before splatter:  After Splatter: Leaf...

Continuing down the miniature path...here is a wee stag beetle. It was made the same way as the tiny fiery searcher . sketch cut stamp color! The tiny stag beetle can be viewed in my shop  HERE [March 3, 2020]

I love miniature things and I already had these tiny easels so I decided to make some mini stamps which I could then color with watercolor paints. As always, I start with a sketch: The fiery searcher is a very colorful predatory ground beetle in the Order Carabidae. Next I transfer the sketch by laying it on the stamping material and rubbing the reverse side with a pencil: Then I begin to cut out the image: Done! Next I stamped the image onto watercolor paper with waterproof black ink: Then I painted it with watercolors: Next I highlighted certain parts with gold ink and cut it out to the desired tiny size: You can view the piece in my shop  HERE [March 2, 2020]

This counts for three days...because I need to catch up!  (And I'm combining posts, also because I need to catch up). Day 59: A blue pleasing fungus beetle (yes, that is its common name), outlined with a brush pen onto ACEO-sized watercolor paper. Day 60: A metallic wood boring beetle, also outlined with a brush pen on the same paper. Day 61: Color and Splatter! As seen above, I've painted the beetles with water color, and I'm masking them for the splattering process ( t his is so I can splatter the background without getting any onto the beetles in theory) . For a mask, I've traced the outlines of the beetles onto clear acetate film and cut them out. I actually do have some Frisket film which is made especially for this sort of thing, but it is more time consuming to cut out and this method works pretty well. Using water color paint and a paint brush, I splattered the paper by "flicking" the bristles. Once it dr...

I'm falling a bit behind here! This leaf beetle is for making more earrings, but I haven't had the time to get them done yet. I'll update the post once I've completed them. [February 27, 2020] Update: They are completed and can be viewed in my shop HERE

Making earrings is usually a two-day process due to the drying time for the varnish, so I'm combining my bug days here and making two pairs! The first is a tropical stinkbug from the Amazon (above), and the second is a lovely blue weevil from Papua New Guinea (below). This post is a photo summary of how I make them... I start with a drawing... Frequently I will make mirror versions using the computer, so they appear to face the same direction when being worn, but these are fairly symmetrical and shouldn't make a difference*. I will also re-size them if necessary. Then I choose the colored pencils I will use... Using a sharpie marker, I outline the drawing onto the shrink plastic sheet: Then I color them with colored pencils: I punch holes for the jump rings and then cut them out with scissors. Besides making the design, the cutting can be the most time-consuming part of the whole process: Here they are cut out and ...