Saturday, July 02, 2005

interesting green insect



I've been thinking about insects lately. Painting them, in particular. I really would like to paint some members of the wasp family but nothing atrocious like red or black wasps. The hunting wasps are very neat and way more beautiful than the things you dodge to avoid being stung. Years ago I got a copy of a great book by John Crompton called "The Hunting Wasp." It is a wonderful book but unfortunately there aren't any pictures in it. So I feel like I need to paint some pictures of these interesting creatures. Photos (and I like to paint from photos, sorry) can be found all over the web. All of them copyrighted. I don't know enough about copyright law to say whether or not I can paint from them so I won't. I like my photos too but if you want to use them to paint something or display them or whatever, please do so. No copyrights attached.

I'm posting this image to bugguide.net to see if I can get an ID on the bug. You can weigh in here. Isn't the web cool?

echinacea purperea



I've always loved this flower. The orange cone with the purple petals, yellow pollen and green foliage caught my eye. I've been trying to take some photos of insects but this flower was so beautiful I took pictures of it as well. This is in the bed between the garage and front porch.