This butterfly camouflages itself in the forest of Foz do Iguaçu by spreading its patchwork wings.

This butterfly belongs to the Hamadryad genus. The soft earthtone patchwork of their wings camouflages these butterflies on lichen-covered tree trunks. They always land on the trunk with their heads pointing downward. Does this give them better lift off when they take flight again?

Completed at last. The complex patterns of the hamadryad butterfly in watercolor.

This afternoon I put the finishing touches on this illustration of the Hamadryad. The Brazilian Portuguese word for butterfly is borboleta. Of course it’s a feminine (gender) noun! What else could such a beautiful creature be?

I've reached the halfway milestone on this complex illustration!

Monday afternoon I stepped back from the painting table and realized I had completed half of this illustration of a hamadryad butterfly. Well, I’d better not fall over patting myself on the back!

Onward!

Step by step: painting a colorful Hamadryad butterfly. © 2011 Wren M. Allen

Last week I started work on a natural history illustration of a Hamadryad butterfly. I thought I’d join each day’s painting session in a progression, so you could see the slow layering and build-up of an image. The complex patterns of this Hamadryad help it blend in with the textured bark and lichens of the tree trunks where it leaves in the Foz do Iguaçu National Park in southern Brazil.

How the color's faded in this autumn gourd! © Wren M. Allen

It’s a good thing I photographed this gourd on its first day in the studio! As autumn gourds dry out, they often lose their brilliant color, even if they dry evenly and keep their form. The greens on this gourd have all faded to an ochre yellow.

Porcelain orchid illustration: This week's progress, © Wren M. Allen

This week’s focus was the porcelain orchid illustration I started after our return from Chilean Patagonia over the 2009 New Year’s holiday. Instead of working all over the composition, I painted individual blooms and stalks.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

The tiny, dark veins on the porcelain orchid are a very fiddly detail.

I started this illustration of a porcelain orchid before enrolling in the Jardim Botânico’s illustration course. I stopped work on it during the course because I really needed to focus on and practice the material and techniques that Malena Barreto and Paulo Ormindo were teaching. I pulled it out again last week to have a project to alternate with the bromeliad illustration. Sometimes it’s a really good idea to switch to a different image when one reaches an impasse on the first project. That way the artist can avoid both making a drastic error on a watercolor and frittering away the workday uselessly stewing about the next step.

It’s a real challenge to return to this project, as I started it using a dry brush technique, and since the course, I’ve been working on floating in wet-in-wet washes, slowly drying up and tightening up later in the process. The question is whether to continue the illustration in the original dry-brush mode, or if it’s possible to incorporate what I learned during the course in terms of a looser technique.

We saw this small orchid growing in the Torres del Paine national park in Patagonia, Chile. It stands about 6″-8″ high, and is called porcelain orchid due to the fragile white blossoms, deeply veined in dark bluish green. The harsh environment of its mountainous home results in a small, sturdy, compact habit—quite a contrast to the exuberant, expansive orchids found in tropical Brazil. Can anyone tell me more about this flower, including its proper Latin name?

Aurore de La Morinerie works in watercolor or ink on a wide variety of papers. I suspect she uses classic Japanese calligraphy and sumi-e brushes, given the free and calligraphic shapes of her brushstrokes. The different absorbencies and textures of the support papers affects the flow and shape of the washes, further enhancing the loose and evocative nature of her illustrations. A good portion of her work seems to be for the fashion and luxury interiors industries. She also maintains a blog, par Aurore, which features her travel sketches and personal work and photographs. I sure wish she would update it more frequently, so we could enjoy more of her wonderful work!

A studio view of the retablo in progress

Oh, dear. Yesterday’s progress on the retablo was not smooth sailing. The liquid acrylic pigments dry almost instantly on the plate, so there isn’t much time to blend or scumble. And at 8″ x 10″, the image requires small brushes, which I don’t have, so I’m using an old synthetic watercolor brush, which doesn’t have much body to stand up to the heavy liquid. The dried paint has a rugged, crusty texture, which I find undesirable.

After 3 years of working solely in watercolor, I’d forgotten just how messy and nasty acrylic paints are in comparison. Clean up and set up take a significant chunk of the work period. I’m totally dissatisfied with where this thing is at right now, and having a serious re-think about what to do next, or even if this project is something to abandon all together.

Wondering if it’s time to punt.

Close-up of color and pattern on the "floral" stem.

Now the process of fine detail work begins. Here you can see how I layered thin glazes of reds over the light green base layer coloring the stem of the flowering bract structure. Greens and reds tend to dissolve each other when layered or glazed, so it was important to work carefully and not loosen the lower layers by flushing too much water in the wash.