#biodiversityday : the Flower Mantis

 

This is an ink drawing I created last weekend, inspired by Biodiversity Day Saturday 22nd May. This insect is called a Flower Mantis because it has the appearance of a flower, making it extraordinarily beautiful. I chose it mainly because it is so colourful and has unusual wings. I drew it from life, as it were, because it is an insect specimen I have in my collection at home so I was able to observe it in front of me as I sketched it. It is labelled as a Flower Mantis, found in Vietnam, and looks somewhat stretched out because it is preserved in a cube which fits into an accompanying display box. Whereas in the wild, it would be seen standing on all fours or standing tall and upright, fanning its wings if it felt alarmed. In this drawing, you see the legs and arms fully, rather than just a hint of them underneath the insect. Here's the original specimen. 

The colours haven't quite come out true to life in this photo 📷 because I haven't used a conventional camera so it's harder to get the focal length for sharpness right and the lighting right for the shades of colours. For instance, the brown parts of the wings, underneath the pinkish bits are brown not pink tinted. So my drawing is more accurate than the photo above of the specimen.

I used very similar materials to the previous week's Japanese Hakata doll - green tinted calligraphy paper, liquid Indian ink, liquid coloured inks and bamboo pens. However, this subject matter is even more intricate so I also used some attachable ink pen nibs although I discovered that the bamboo pens were more user-friendly, especially for the black outlines.

I've scaled up the Flower Mantis while trying to keep to the same proportions because it is tiny in real life - I'd have to draw a miniature with a needle to make small enough marks! Mind you, I did paint a miniature Self-Portrait last year with a biro cap! Anyway, here I have sketched the mantis in the style of a zoological illustration/ink drawing, making it completely realistic to life, other than it being larger, so that the viewer feels as though they have met the insect and knows what it looks like. Part of the value of this style of drawing is that it documents and records animal species for future generations, which is especially important if they become endangered or extinct later on. 

This Flower Mantis wasn't easy to proportion in line with the original. I used a small ruler to give me a sense of scale and dimension, plotted out a rough guide in pencil before drawing it freehand in permanent ink. The medium of ink doesn't leave any room for error because you can't rub it out or adjust it then or later. So it's a medium which needs uninterrupted focus and concentration. And it's not just about the marks you do want to draw, it's also about the accidental smudges that you don't want - followed by an exclamation of "oh noooooo!" 😯 The thought of having to start again is enough to give me a meltdown! 😩 Luckily I managed to cut off one big finger ink smudge at the top with my scissors ✂, so the dimensions of the page for my final artwork are somewhat unconventional. 😏 Next time I go to my bug collection to draw an insect, I may go about it differently. 🤔🎨🖼 I think I'll go back to the same process and nibs I used the previous week for the Japanese Hakata doll, but remembering that the lines are proportionally thicker for the bugs because it's a smaller drawing. Hence on the doll, the lines look thinner than on the insect, even though both are identical lines. 😒 

The Mantis is an interesting order of insect, but that's a biological point which I will discuss on my environment blog: 

https://wildlifegardensandtheenvironment.blogspot.com