An Art Work A Day

Today I watched the opening seremony of the Olympic games in Beijing. I therefore brought out my ink stone and ink stick and my chinese brushes as well as rice paper. It has been a while since I used these technique so I definately need to practice a bit before my brush work is as I would like it.

Insects are both a pest as well as something that all of nature depends on. I therefore find it a very suitable subject matter for this challenge.

OLympic Mantis,

ink on rice paper

16x24cm

nfs, needs mounting first, if you want it unmounted then please contact me.
p&p worldwide is FREE

Romance and Tears,
encaustic art
7x9cm
$11


p&p is FREE












Some has asked me how my praying mantis are doing and most are doing well. Here is one of them. It had a bit of problem with it and dropped it twice before it was able to hold it long enough to kill it.



Indian Flower Prayin Mantis with its prey

Today I got some new praying mantis. This is a Creobroter gemmatus - Indian Flower Mantis, L2/L3 I think, meaning it has molted once or twice. Much more shy than the other mantis I have. Very pretty.

As for my Tenodera aridifolia sinensis = Chinese praying mantis, Most have molted for the third time and the terrarium has lots of empthy "skins" handging or lying around. The first photo is of one of them in the final part of getting out of the old skin. The third photo is of one beside the empty skin. It is so amazing that they come out a third bigger than the old size. Imagine how tight that old skin must have felt in the end.

I just had to show you my little beauty. Phylocrania Paradoxa - Ghost praying mantis- spøkelseskneler. It is small but adorable. It arrived today, groomed itself and started to hunt right away.


I did not know my arm was that hairy hehehehe

Yepp, for those of you wondering, I am hooked on insects at the moment.

This one is painted using an amazing photo made by Steen Heilesen as a reference to practice the posture. He was kind enough to allow me the use of his mantis as models untill my own grow up.
Here is the link to the photo. http://www.flickr.com/photos/steenheilesen/193123523/


Mantis Practice 3,
ink on rice paper
17x23cm
$15
p&p worldwide is FREE

This weekend i have enjoyed myself doing both very abstract work in beeswax and trying out ink works with the subject insects and Praying mantis. I hope you nejoy the avriation as much as I did.
Encaustic abstract no 2 April 2008,
7x9cm
$20
p&p is FREE