Holiday bugs

I've been going through our holiday photos and there are rather too many that look like this ...

One of oh-so-many swallow tails that were just to quick for me

I am quite gutted how many beautiful butterflies I didn't manage to capture (and son is gutted by all the grasshoppers that got away). But here is the edit of those critters that I did manage to snap.

I think this one might have been dead! Hue, Vietnam

 

Bees drinking from a lily in a pot pond. Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Well camouflaged and a bit slower than your typical grasshopper, as if crossed with a stick insect. Angkor, Cambodia

Palm crickets from the bamboo train ride, Battambang, Cambodia

 

Dinner crickets, and beetles and small birds. Pursat, Cambodia

Dragonfly, Angkor, Cambodia

Silk worms, Silk Island, Phnom Penh

We do love a good shield bug, and this is a beauty! Angkor, Cambodia

Ok, so catching them at it was cheating. Angkor, Cambodia

Moths are so much more obliging than butterflies. Note the transparent 'eyes'. These were as big as my hand, and satiated my lepidopteric desires. Angkor, Cambodia

hedge, fields, birds - work in progress 1

I've been working on a print for the season, clipped hedgerows, long shadows, freshly ploughed fields, and strong autumnal colours. There have been some pretty dramatic sunsets over the past couple of weeks but its the sunrises that have really taken my breath away, especially if I happened to be cycling through the fields on my way to the station at the time - just magical!

Looking through the my recent photos I see orange in many places, in the sky, in a common starfish, in an unknown fruit and in a feathered thorn moth.

Here's a glimpse or two of the print in progress, with the first of the three blocks printed ...

Hello wall

Looking good. I used to live in a very old cottage with lots of nooks and crannies, hanging pictures was easy, everything had a place and everything looked great. Six months ago we moved to a house that is younger than me and I was (and still am) overwhelmed by the expanses of bare wall. Its still looking pretty sparse in most rooms but I quite like the way this wall is going so thought i'd share it with you.  

And in case you're interested...

1 The Hermitage from The Hermitage

2 Lodka from The Hermitage

3 Owl from PRINTforLOVEofWOOD

4 silk embroidery from that auction site about 5yrs ago

5 Science is Awesome from Pam Wishbow Illustration

6 Moth Embroidery by Jenny McCabe

small quiet creatures

We have found some wonderful life in our garden and on our walks and I itch to use their patterns and shapes in new work. I love the strikingly geometric grasshopper, like a moving blueprint of some complex mechanical contraption. The caterpillar of The Cinnabar moth is ingeniously camouflaged amongst the ragwort flowers but his yellow and black stripes remind me of some outlandish theatre pantaloons. But my favourite is the Gatekeeper, a modest little butterfly with a name that sums up his habit of lingering around the brambles and nettles that frame the garden gates and line the country lanes here. At the moment I am working up some sketches of the pair of goldfinches that seem to monopolise the bird feeder. More soon...