Grasshopper

Over the summer I have been drawing a lot of insects, this is the most recent. Currently almost all the other drawings are in a gallery show. I became much more fascinated this summer with cicadas than normal and collected over twenty nymph husks, which they leave hanging on trees after they emrege from the ground.

This grasshopper was caught while out walking the dog and I took it home. In the big picture it means nothing but I killed it before using it in my studio.

“Grasshopper”, Charcoal pastel on paper, 15” x 22”, 2009-10-03

Color Wheel

For this drawing of a color wheel I used cast off husks from cicada nymphs they left hanging to tree trunks.

“Color Wheel”, Color Pencil on paper, 14” x 17”, 2009-09-01

What is brown and sounds like a bell?

Dung. Or a Dung beetle to be precise. I found a dung beetle in my basement, it had crawled out of the ash pit under the fireplace. I have never used the fireplace but the grackles drop all sorts of crap down the chimney including themselves. Beetle Heaven.

This drawing has over twenty hours of work into it, I find color pencil can be very tedious to use but has a look that can be worth it. For me the color study was about texture and the nature of the grid work applied to the background and the beetle.

“Dung Beetle”, Color Pencil on paper, 14” x 17”, 2009-08-18