Lmst

For #insertAnInvert a print about how monarch butterflies who are fooled into laying eggs on the invasive dog-strangling vine (European swallowwort, Vincetoxicum rossicum) due to its similarities to its host plant milkweed are cursed to hatch larvae which starve and die. Dog-strangling vine unlike milkweed doesn’t serve as a food source for the caterpillars, 🧵1/n

#linocut #printmaking #sciart #monarchButterfly #urbanEcology #invasiveSpecies #speciesAtRisk #insertAnInvert2024 #MastoArt

print on 11” x 14” paper with a gel plate print in green with swirling dog-strangling vine with leaves and pods along with a flying linocut monarch butterfly in tints of orange, white and black. The monarch looks surrounded and the intent is for the green and the vine to look threatening like it is being encircled. It’s titled “European swallowwort and monarch butterfly,” signed Ele Willoughby and dated 2024.

Another 2024 print for #insertAnInvert: made for the #InsertAnInvert2024 prompt is crawler, about shellfish who can drag themselves over surface like the spectacularly coloured lined chitons (Tonicella lineata), beautiful, tiny marine mollusc of the North Pacific. I don’t usually make reduction prints but I think I might otherwise loose my mind trying to capture the complex patterns.

https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/1686961917

#linocut #printmaking #Tonicella #invertebrate #chiton #sciart #wildlifeArt #MastoArt

Final stage of my chiton print shows the ovoid animal from above with a series of plates surrounded by a girdle. The plates have pale pink and orangey brown downward pointing triangles down the middle with slanted thin stripes of burgundy, blue and black on either side. The girdle around the circumference has a reddish rim with yellow and blue dashes and a burgundy ring around the plates.

For the final crustacean of May and the “really not a crab” prompt for #InsertAnInvert2024 I have opted for a far more common (and frankly less terrifying) little creature than the suggested species (that even our crustacean expert called “absolute abominations”). This little cutie on the other hand, is a freshwater water flea. Daphnia longispina is a planktonic crustacean of the 🧵1/n

#printmaking #sciart #drypoint #etching #TetrapakPrint #MastoArt #invertebrate #crustacean #InsertAnInvert

Circular green Tetrapak intaglio print of Daphnia longispina, a tiny planktonic crustacean of the family Daphniidae, a cladoceran native to Eurasia. Only about 2 mm long, it’s found in all sorts of standing freshwater bodies from rock-pools to large lakes.

I’m interpreting #InsertAnInvert2024 a little loosely again. You won’t necessarily find these bees in leaf litter, though you might as they do make nests in the ground or in hollow twigs, but they definitely can be found near our homes, using leaves, so here we are.

This is one of a series of related prints about leaf cutter bees, each unique. 🧵1/n

#linocut #printmaking #nativeBees #leafCutterBee #botanicalArt #leafPrint #entomology #sciart #bees #insertAnInvert #MastoArt

#insertAnInvert

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