Hello my friends! 

This week I thought I’d share a new bug illustration, featuring one of my favourite beetles!

The Stag beetle!!

Amazingly the Stag beetle is actually a bit of a rare species, the males use their huge mandibles to fight off other males and impress possible mates and it takes between three to seven years for an egg to become a beetle. 

So I’ve drawn one similar to my other bug art, its postcard size 300gsm paper and only 13x18cm.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a massive fan of colouring pencils but I’ve found them easier to work with than watercolours when I’m out in the sun, so as a treat I recently bought a small set of Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and OMG they are awesome! They are such smooth pencils and you can really build up the colour. I also really love how you can burnish with the white pencil!

My Stag beetle was created using only a few different colours, plus a black Arteza brush pen and a little Winsor & Newton black ink for the outlines. I’m really quite please with this drawing I think its pretty ‘round’ looking and doesn’t look too flat, which is something I’m always nervous of when using pencils.

Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my art…I hope you like it! Got a favourite bug? 

© ArtyMissK 2024