random nature bits

Bill found the remains of this butterfly in his woodshop, so of course he brought it to me to sketch. It must have been trying to escape a recent freeze but possibly got caught by one of our barn cats.

After drawing the butterfly, I added a few of this year’s bumper crop of acorns. These are from a water oak and a live oak.

a very teeny moth

On the flagstone path near the swimming pool, I found a very tiny, very dead moth. So tiny that I almost missed seeing him altogether. I pinched a bloom off the nearby lantana to lay next to him to get some perspective on how truly small he was. The head of one lantana cluster is just over 1” across, making the moth maybe 1/2”.

I was also testing Gansai paints in my journal. I like the bright pop of warm colors against the cool grey toned paper. I may have to use Gansai more often! Because my normal selection of watercolors run to a more cool, subdued color range, maybe a warm beige toned paper would be a better choice for me in the future. Contrasts are a good thing!

The quote on the left side is from artist Favian Ee. I read it last December and it has stayed in my mind — so I looked it up and wrote it down. The main line that caught my attention is “. . . much of life can only be understood in retrospect, but it must be lived forward in faith . . .”

more wee bits

While the local roadsides are full of Indian paintbrush, pink primrose, and blanket flower, the farm’s wildflowers are a bit smaller. Some not even 1/4” in diameter — but the yard and pastures are full of them! The largest, crimson clover, has now gone to seed but last week I saw a tiny gray hairstreak butterfly enjoying their nectar. In the sun, its gray wings looked more lavender.

I thought I’d sketch a page of a few of the smaller unknown flowers . . . and got a bit carried away.

a sadder butterfly

I was able to sketch this butterfly because it was not moving. Actually it was dead, damaged, with its color fading quickly. Most of the butterflies feeding on our lantana and other flowering shrubs move too quickly for sketching or even a blurred photo.

I’ve been slowly trimming the lantana back from the jungle it’s become around the pool. Hopefully this will encourage a new blooming — currently the only ones left with flowers are these in the sketch, growing in front of the barn.

Due to extreme heat and humidity, I only get a few plants trimmed each day that I’m at the new house. But eventually I’ll catch up . . .

2 butterflies

This year has been a better-than-average year for Central Texas wildflowers; it has also been a phenomenal year for butterflies!

One day as I was washing dishes, I glanced up to find these 2 types of swallowtail butterflies in one of our Mexican Plum trees when it was in flower. Both were Huge in size!

Since then, I continue to see more of them often. But they never hold still so I drew them using a field guide — just to remember them in my journal.

more from Field Notes

With a name like Field Notes notebook, one would think that I would fill this wee purse-or-pocket sized sketchbooks with sketches of the pastures and cotton fields around us. But I tend to just grab them to draw in wherever I happen to end up sitting, whether that be church, a doctor's office, or whatever.

The above is drawn from a recent photo I took. Amazingly, butterflies are still with us through the winter even though it's been colder than normal at times.

I chose to draw my cross necklace here to go with the Scripture verse at church. It's called a "grafted in" cross, representing believers in Messiah Jesus being grafted in to the vine of Israel. God is not finished with His ancient people and His promises hold!

And then there is always a random sketch of my bag or shoe during church . . .

lantana & our clouded yellow invasion

Our lantana is still blooming in spite of a recent frost . . . and it is still visited regularly by clouded yellow butterflies. In fact, this year has seen huge swarms of them --- When first seen, they appear to be small leaves drifting down from nearby trees but then they land on flowers and hold so still they make what was a shrub of red flowers change to yellow.