Tortoiseshell butterfly study

I went to let the dog out this morning(ish) and there was a butterfly with a broken wing in the porch.Now i know they only live until October time anyway but i felt bad for it, it was probably the cat that broke its wing, so i put it on a flower in the sun. It stayed there a while so i went and grabbed my sketchpad. I've recently been looking at the very big, very expensive Charley Harper book in the studio, i've still not made it all the way through. I was just looking at the pictures for inspiration for my Personal Project so i didn't read anything about him. It was soon glaringly obvious that he had spent many many hours watching, studying and sketching animals. We're always told that primary research is better than secondary, but this is the first time i've ever truely noticed it in someone elses work.



It first hit me when i was i saw his picture of a frog leaping to catch an insect. It is nowhere near the traditional front facing frog sat on a lilly pad. It is a cross section through the frogs life. It shows what's going on under the water as well as our world above it. The frog has such movement, like Harper has captured the moment just in time. There is that wonderful 'will he, won't he' about catching the dragonfly. As soon as i saw this i made a note in my sketchbook to go into the garden and draw from the wildlife on my doorstep, and to take my sketchbook with me when i go places. I always have paper in my bag, but i rarely think to get it out and draw. I feel silly when drawing in public, i feel like a fake. You see REAL artists painting in a field or on the street, i don't feel like a real artist yet. I don't like the attention i would get from drawing, people would look as they went by and judge my sketches like they were the final thing. Never the less, you don't get anywhere in life by staying inside your comfort zone. I haven't come this far by running away everytime i wanted to. The plan is to keep going out into the garden or the park or the countryside with some paper and a pencil and draw some studies, then paint a functioning picture to show what i've learnt from that outing. So along with the anatomical aspect of the study, i also need to notice how things move, act and behave.

From the butterfly study i have learnt that they only have four legs, rather than 6, and that their short body is angled quite sharply upwards compared to their wings - i always thought it was long and flat like a dragonfly's. The antenna too were interesting, they were extremely fine but clearly made of sections or scales, and the slightly bulbous sensor on the ends had a pure white circle on the tip, rather like the white circle on boxers gloves when they wear helmets.