#drawingbugs

Art gift 100! This one is going to a contributor to my Friends of the Earth fundraiser. (Every donation of $5 or more gets a small surprise piece of original bug art in the mail. Not too late to get one.) This is a male goliath beetle. It’s a hero of the environment and the largest beetle in the world, up to 4.3 inches long. Its short life— just a few months—begins as an egg buried in the soil. It goes through three metamorphoses before reaching maturity. As an adult, it likes the sweet life, eats sweet food—tree sap and rotting fruit—though in earlier life it requires more protein and will also eat rotting plant and animal matter, including dung. It plays an important role in the tropical African forest ecosystem, cleaning up garbage and recycling nutrients back into soil. It uses its claws to climb trees, but can also fly with its double set of wings (inner and outer). The goliath beetle is very strong. It can carry loads up to 850 times its own weight. When I grow up, I want to be just like the goliath beetle. (Except for the part about eating dung.) . Goliath beetle, ink on paper, 4.5 x 6.5” - I’m drawing bugs to draw attention to the devastating loss of insect life on earth due to climate change, deforestation, and industrial agriculture. These problems are large scale and require organized efforts to fix, not just individual action. But the good news is, we can join up and support organizations doing the work. Every little bit counts. . . . #insect #insects #insectart #goliathbeetle #beetle #drawing #insectdrawing #markerart #inspiredbynature #recycler #africanwildlife #sweetlife #artforchange #drawingattention #drawingbugs #bug #bugs #anthropocene #massextinction #artivism #artivist #artdaily #artoftheday #drawingoftheday #worksonpaper #wildlife #ecoart #ecoarte #insects_of_our_world #insectlovers https://www.instagram.com/p/CMj_PlNn58D/?igshid=1pzd2m1ni7okt

Simple, decorative, soft. Which would you display? . . . #cicada #bugdisplays #entemology #cicadadrawing #drawingbugs #illustration #ottawaartist #bugart https://www.instagram.com/p/COJMOf4lvJV/?igshid=1adeh2ajnp8dj

Art gift 103. The common housefly is thought of as a pest and disease carrier, but they are much more than that. They evolved 60 million years before humans, so they knows a thing or two about life. This female can walk on smooth walls, even on ceilings, thanks to the tiny claws and sticky pads on her feet. Receptors on her legs let her taste things just by walking on them. Her big eyes have 4000 facets, so she see things from thousands of slightly different angles at once. And she processes visual information seven times faster than humans, so it’s like everything around her is moving in slow-motion. No wonder it’s hard to catch a fly! Houseflies don’t bite—they can’t even chew. Their mouths are like vacuum cleaners. They mix solid food with saliva and suck it up like a smoothie. In the course of her short life, a female will lay about nine thousands eggs, in batches of about 100 at a time. Those eggs, and the larvae that hatch from them, are important, nutritious food for other small creatures, and do good work in the environment digesting rotting waste. The common housefly is by no means endangered—in fact, a world thrown out of balance by mass extinction could kill off creatures that depend on her larvae for sustenance, which means houseflies may thrive far more than humans as the climate catastrophe unfolds. There’s still a lot we can do to avert the worst of the potential damage. Toward that end… . I’m making seven 4 x 6” archival prints of this beauty. The first is going to a someone who already contributed to my fundraiser for Friends of the Earth ( @friends_earth ), the second goes to my nephew’s bug book. (See previous post.) The rest will go to anyone giving $10 or more by clicking the Donate link in this Insta post. Message me your address and I’ll mail you a print as my thank you gift. . . . #insects #housefly #flies #insectart #artivism #bugs #drawing #insectdrawing #drawingoftheday #digitaldrawing #procreate #procreateart #digitalart #wildlife #massextinction #artivist #artdaily #drawingbugs #insectos #inspiredbynature #insectsofinstagram #nature #naturelover #beauty #inspiration #naturalworld #flyingbugs #insekten #natura #climatechange https://www.instagram.com/p/CMxIHTjn264/?igshid=1n52ej801xqgg