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I found this oil pastel on toned paper work from autumn of 2020 while hunting for another painting, and realized I did not have this one scanned or uploaded.

In the summer of 2020, I had a goof-sized hatch of swallowtail caterpillars eat up my four bronze fennel plants and then pupating all around the bare stems. Then at the start of September of 2020, the butterflies emerged from their cocoons and I could see they were specifically black swallowtails - my husband even got photographs of one drying its wings on my hand, and one of those snapshots was the inspiration behind this particular artwork. Since I didn't feel like trying to draw my hand at the time, I set the butterfly on a blade of green grass, with its wings stretched out to show the pale yellow dot pattern as well as the bits of iridescent blue at the bottom of its wings. Since I did all of this on a rusty-orange-brown paper, the gaps left by the oil pastel look like the ground.

Butterflies are one of my fav...

I often joke that I learned to draw and paint because it is easier and quicker for me than getting a good photograph. I do still make the attempt to use my camera more effectively from time to time, but I have more natural aptitude to using a pencil or paint. Often what few photographs I am satisfied with become reference for my artwork. I work with charcoal, soft pastels, oil pastels, watercolor, acrylic, and am learning oil painting. I tend towards more realistic, although I have dabbled in impressionism when the fancy strikes. I live at the dead end of a dirt road in rural Florida with my husband and a yardful of critters, while the local deer and wild turkeys eat my annual efforts at gardening.