#InsectArt

2025-12-23

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, you get a drawing and a photograph! Burying beetles (genus Nicrophorus) are known for their practice of burying small animal carcasses to create a home and food for their larvae. Both females and males tend to their brood until they pupate.

One of the most exciting moments of last summer was when one wandered through my backyard!

#SciArt #InsectArt

Chalk drawing on earth tone paper of a black beetle with red stripes and fringed antennae, carefully carrying a white larva in its mandibles.Photograph of a black beetle with red stripes and fringed antennae, walking across pavement.
2025-12-22

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have this power couple, the trilobite beetle (Platerodrilus sp). Females retain their larval form, just getting bigger and bigger, while males undergo regular metamorphosis. The females were first described (and poorly classified) in 1831, but it took nearly 100 years to figure out who or what the males were.

#SciArt #InsectArt #warercolor

Watercolor of two beetles. The male is small with yellow wings and squiggly antennae. The female is an enormous, armored worm, brown with bright orange highlights.
2025-12-21

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, you get... wasps! Just as important as bees, and even more fabulously diverse!

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a long-tailed giant ichneumonid wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus), a yellow and red wasp with a very long ovipositor.Watercolor of Aphytis melinus (unlabelled), a very tiny yellow wasp with green eyes.Marker drawing of a Pelecinid wasp (unlabelled), a black wasp with a long, curled up abdomen.Watercolor of a fairy fly wasp (family Mymaridae), a wasp too tiny to have regular membranous wings. Instead they have what look like fluffy feathers stuck to their backs.
2025-12-20

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have... Cicadas! I love listening to them scream :D

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Chalk drawing of an orange and black cicada, staring wide-eyed at the viewer.Drawing of the outline of a person's head, their brain filled with screaming orange cicadas. It says, "There are cicadas where my brain should be."Watercolor of a black and orange cicada in a pinned pose, with one set of wings extended to the left and the other folded up. The colors bleed outside the illustration for a grungy aesthetic.Watercolor of a white cicada with orange and blue stripes. The colors drip and bleed beyond the illustration for a grungy feel.
2025-12-19

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar... I love learning about insect symbionts.

Like the guardian wasp (Parachartergus apicalis), which tends to treehopper nymphs, protecting them from predators in exchange for honeydew excretions.

Or Attaphila cockroaches, which are known to infest leaf-cutting ant's fungus farms. They mimic the scent of their hosts, making the pests indistinguishable from worker ants.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a black wasp with white wing tips. She is tending to little brown treehopper nymphs.Watercolor of an ant surrounded by little brown blobs similar to tribbles, including one perched on the ant's head. It says, "The Trouble with Attaphila..."
2025-12-18

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar you get some of my favorite beetles - tiger beetles! They're so pretty! They're vicious little predators! They run around so fast their little brains can't process what their enormous eyes see!

I first learned about them as a kid from the Animal Planet show, "The Most Extreme", which I'm still half convinced was a fever dream because I've never met anyone who even remembers that show. I was obsessed with it.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a fuzzy green beetle with purple and white elytra. It has enormous eyes (all the better to see you with) and large, stabby mandibles (all the better to eat you with).Scribbly sketch of an all-green tiger beetle with white spots at the rear of its elytra.
2025-12-16

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, a lovely mantis.

#InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a silhouette of a mantis clinging to a flower in front of a setting sun.
2025-12-15

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have some ancient insects that we only know of from fossils and amber. I based the coloring on modern insects.

Angimorella burmitina is a beetle found trapped in amber and covered in pollen grains, pushing back our understanding of insect pollination by nearly 50 million years!

Palaeovespa florissantia is one of the earliest known wasps, from an absolutely gorgeous fossil found in my home state of Colorado.

The last one is an extinct frog legged beetle called Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough's Beauty. It also comes from a gorgeous fossil found in Colorado, not far from where I used to live!

#SciArt #InsectArt #FossilArt #watercolor

Watercolor of Angimorella burmitina, an extinct beetle that lived around 98 million years ago. It is mostly brown with a green head and thorax and thick rear legs.Watercolor of a wasp of the genus Palcovespa, which lived between 44-10 million years ago. It is a reddish colored wasp with a black and yellow striped abdomen.Pastel drawing of a shiny green beetle with intricate black swirls on its elytra. Its hind legs are very thick, like a frog's.
2025-12-14

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have some buggy jewelry I made a few years ago.

#InsectArt #WireWrapping #jewelry

A bee made from beads and wire. Black beads of three different sizes make up the head, thorax, and abdomen, which is wrapped with gold wire to make stripes. Gold wire also forms the outline of wings, while black wire is used to make antennae. The stinger is implied by a silver, conical bead at the tip of the abdomen.A beetle made up of beads and wire. The head is a black bead, the abdomen a green oval with thick silver wire to outline wings. Thin silver wire makes up two curly antennae.
2025-12-12

Some more 3d art for today's #ArtAdventCalendar, this time carved from wood scraps.

#InsectArt #InvertArt

A beetle, made up of various types and colors of wood, fitted together like a puzzle.A bee, made up of various types and colors of woods, fitted together like a puzzle.Wood art featuring octopus tentacles reaching up from below.
2025-12-10

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, a couple of weevils - also good for #WeevilWednesday

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a host nose weevil, Antliarhis zamiae. It is a bright orange weevil with an absurdly long nose.Watercolor of an acorn weevil and her larva, nestled in an acorn, made visible for a heart-shaped cutout.
2025-12-09

Dieses entzückende Insekt ist ein Stabwanze (Ranatra linearis), also called a water stick, or a delightful little guy. The long tail is a breathing tube that allows them to sit motionless underwater indefinitely for a hapless prey to cross its path.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a very long, stick-like insect with large eyes and clawed forelegs, ready to pounce.
2025-12-09

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, I have all of the insects I painted in 2024 for #Invertober (I missed it this year, due to moving). Rather than going with the official prompt list, I focused on invertebrates found in my home state of Colorado.

#SciArt #InvertArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Many watercolors of invertebrates, cut out and placed on a black background. Includes: Mormon cricket, tiger beetle, brown tarantula, rocky mountain capshell, cave pseudoscorpion, say's stink bug, mountain cicada, mussel, millipede, grass carrying wasp, Colorado soldier beetle, desert centipede, robberfly, yellowjacket, cow killer, rocky mountain snail, boxelder bug, silvery blue (butterfly), snakefly, tiger moth and caterpillar, two spotted stinkbug, rocky mountain billbug, thread-waisted wasp, colorado potato beetle, firefly, mountain pine beetle, ornate checkered beetle, golden blister beetle, rabbitbrush beetle, pigeon sawfly, and an extinct wasp... I think I got all of them.
2025-12-03

For today's #ArtAdventCalendar I present: all the bees I painted last year for the first annual #Septembee, a self-made challenge in which I paint a new bee every day for a month. In 2024 I focused on bees found in Colorado.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Many watercolor bees, cut out and arranged on a black background. Showcases some of the diversity around Colorado.
2025-12-02

For #ArtAdventCalendar day 2, here's some paintings I did to accompany my research on native wildflowers and pollinators in southwest Virginia.

#SciArt #InsectArt #pollinators

Watercolor of three underwing moths, each with brightly colored hind wings, cut out and placed on top of a painting of blue flowers.Watercolor of five butterflies, cut out and placed on top of a background with a colorful mix of wildflowers.
2025-11-29

This cutie is a Steirischer Fanghaft, a praying lacewing (Mantispa styriaca). Its larvae are known to demolish the eggs of wolf spiders before pupating inside the protective egg sac. Adults use their mantid-like forelegs to snatch prey right out of the air.

#InsectArt #SciArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a yellowish-brown insect with lacey wings, shiny red eyes, and large clawed forelegs.
The Wee Owl Studio, ArtTheWeeOwl@mastodon.art
2025-11-29

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#FediGiftShop #ScottishArtist #MastoArt #CreativeToots
#InsectArt #TheRealDeal #OriginalArt #Drawing #Painting #Artwork #TraditionalArtist #ArtFromScotland #GiftIdeas #ArtShop #ShopIndy #SupportSmallBusiness #Christmas #ChristmasGifts

A photo collage of some of my insect art:
Bees with white flower, a lizard beetle, peacock butterflies and pink flowers, a grasshopper, a bee with lavender and a ladybird on a snowdrop.
2025-11-26

Dieses langbeinige Insekt ist ein Schneeschnake, aka snowfly, genus Chionea. Active during the winter, they have evolved antifreeze in their hemolymph and can tolerate temperatures several degrees below freezing - some as low as -17°C! If they get frostbite, they simply yank the offending limb off and continue on with their lives. They no longer have wings but little nubbins that my book calls "Schwingkölbchen"

#InsectArt #SciArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a little red insect with very long legs and tiny wing nubbins.
2025-11-25

The first thing I bought here was a German field guide to European insects... The second thing I bought was some new watercolors, because my usual ones are still in a box somewhere. They might take some getting used to 😅

Das ist der Bienenwolf, Philanthus triangulum. These solitary wasps specialize in capturing honey bees, paralyzing them and packing them into underground chambers to feed their larvae.

#InsectArt #SciArt

A wasp with a greyish thorax, red and yellow highlights on its face, and black stripes on a yellow abdomen.
The Wee Owl Studio, ArtTheWeeOwl@mastodon.art
2025-11-08
A photo collage of some of my insect art:
Bees with white flowers and a blue background, will fit a 5x7" frame.
A lizard beetle on grasses in muted colours, will fit a 5x7" frame.
Peacock butterflies and pink flowers, will fit a 5x7" frame.
A grasshopper, will fit a 4x6" frame.
S bee on lavender, will fit a 4x6" frame.
A ladybird on snowdrops, will fit a 4x6" frame.

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