I have been spending the last week gardening. One day sunny, and then one day raining, so just grab the fine days to get outside and tackle some of the jobs. I was cutting the ivy and guess what flew right in front of me. It circled around and then settled right on the ivy and I shouted for my husband to get me a big glass jar to catch it in. It was so beautiful and although I do not like to catch butterflies or moths I assure you it was set free again. In my last post I showed you the same Magpie Moth, that one was found dead. It had its wings closed and so I made a drawing of the patterns on the underside of the wings.
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| see last post for drawing of this Magpie Moth |
I carefully placed my new live moth into this little box and it was free to wander around and then I set about recording her beautiful patterns. I used a brown paper to show the white wings off and painted with a fine brush and my acrylic inks. You can see my progress as I painted the Moth.
I sketched it in pencil and then put in the white markings and then added the black and orange patterns . I was really pleased with the finished result and glad I used the brown background. As I was painting my mind was comparing the spotted shapes with those I had seen on birds eggs. That is what inspired me to paint the two eggs which belong to the Curlew and Oyster catcher. I am working on some other eggs as I enjoyed painting them. As for the Magpie Moth, I opened the back door and set her free into the garden.
There are several different versions of this moth over the years, this one on the envelope was done about five years ago, it was interesting for me to compare and I think I have improved and also a reminder to paint more things on brown paper.
I also found an old nest in the ivy, we have had a blackbird family reared in our garden which has been lovely to watch. We have also had so many colourful butterflies coming to the buddleia bushes, settling on the ground and soaking up the sunshine. When you get closer their wings look torn and faded, the result of the weather I guess and of course it will soon be Autumn.
It will soon be time to shop for some new bulbs to plant in the garden, to flower next Spring. Meanwhile lots of gardening to do, so many things catch my eye. I see objects I want to draw and the red berries are attracting my attention, one of my favourite drawing subjects. Hope you like the moth and eggs.
Thank you for the lovely comments. Hope you all have a lovely weekend and some sunshine too.
Bye for now Milly x
*No Moths were harmed in the making of this blog........ I promise.
