Tag: butterflies

Photography Recap 2022

On By ArtyMissKIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Hello my friends, 

I hope you had a good Christmas!

This week as it’s the last Friday of the year I thought that I’d create a little recap post with some of my favourite photographs taken in 2022.

So enjoy some black and white photography including ladybirds, butterflies and bumble bees.

In June I actually got some decent shots of a Holly Blue butterfly – I’d never seen one of these before – it had such stripy antennae! 

Letting the garden re-wild in the summer for #nomowmay was fun and it didn’t take long for insects to move in, there were so many ladybird beetles, I especially loved photographing them in the early morning.

I even grew my own wildflower ‘mini-meadow’ to encourage bees and really enjoyed watching them in the summer.

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Embroidered Gatekeeper butterfly {Art}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, needlework, Needlework Bugs2 Comments

Hello my friends!!

This week I thought I’d post a new embroidery that I’ve been working on.

Looking back at the Gatekeeper butterfly photographs (that I posted last week!) I decided to embroider one similar to my other needlework butterflies – I’m developing quite a collection of needlework bugs/insects.

As always I started by roughly drawing four wing and body shapes onto calico and then filled them in with the closest coloured threads I had. I like to block colour first using two stands of embroidery floss and then blend using a single strand (on the smallest needle imaginable – its like a hair!)

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Gatekeeper Butterfly {Photography collection}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello my friends!

Nature is magical isn’t it?!

This weeks post is a new butterfly centred photography collection. Its all about the Pyronia tithonus butterfly or Gatekeeper and over a couple of (very) early mornings it was most courteous and posed for a few pictures. I love insects and I wanted to take you with me into the early morning world of butterflies!

I loved watching the different flowers appear during #nomowmay (I even got up one morning to a huge patch of Ox Eye daisies) that I thought ‘that was fun, let’s let the unwanted plants do their own thing*.’

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Embroidered Large white butterfly {Art}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, needlework, Needlework BugsLeave a comment

Hello friends! I hope you had a good week!

I’ve got a new butterfly embroidery to share this week. I’m really happy with the Large White photograph (that I posted last week!) I particularly love this type of butterfly – they’re so beautiful but because the caterpillars eat cabbages humans consider them a pest.

So I decided to embroider one similar to my Holly Blue.

After I roughly draw the four wings and body shapes onto the piece of calico I then filled them in with the closest coloured threads I had. I like to block colour first using two stands of embroidery floss and then blend using a single strand (on the tiny needle) and created a backing canvas with the butterflies name in a hoop with plain calico – in my best handwriting.

This one is a little bigger than the Holly blue butterfly that I posted a couple of weeks ago and is about 4 1/2 inches across, the stitches are so tiny! The Large white is a little different to the holly blueing so far as the body of the butterfly has a crocodile clip sewn on so that I can attach them to plants around the house!

Well that’s it for this week…I’ve got a few more of these on the way and am thinking of putting them on my etsy…maybe. My idea at the moment is to create needlework butterflies of all the real ones I see!

What do you think? Should they be bigger? I’d love some feedback on this piece. Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

ps. if you want to check out the Holly Blue butterfly embroidery its HERE

Large White Butterfly {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Hello my friends!

I hope life has treated you well this week.

Well, its been four or five weeks since my last one frame post, and I thought I’d share this image – I was sitting in a grassy field recently when this little beauty landed near me! I’m pretty sure its a Large White (Pieris brassicae), it landed on a fox tail for maybe a minute before flying away!

When it comes to photography, I don’t use any special lenses or have a particularly high tech camera – I use a Nikon Coolpix L340 its a good little point and click camera (which I’ve had for ages) and although I’ve been threatening to upgrade to a DSLR for sometime, I like my L340 and know how to work it!

I was really glad to capture this image with quite a soft background and how the colours compliment the butterfly.

Well that’s it for this week, one butterfly photo. I hope you like it. Do you have a favourite bug? As ever I want to thank you for reading and wish you a wonderful week!

Embroidered Holly Blue butterfly {Art}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, needlework, Needlework Bugs2 Comments

Hello my friends!

This week I thought post something new that I’ve been working on…as you know I love needlework and I embroidered bees before and wanted to experiment to see if I could create a 3-d butterfly.

When I saw the Holly Blue butterfly and was able to take some photographs of it (that I posted last week!) I knew that I wanted to create a piece of art about this insect.

So I decided to embroider one similar to the bee I did last year, but instead of being a flat piece I want to try and make it a little more three dimensional. 

I started by roughly drawing four wing shapes onto calico and then filled them in with as similar coloured threads as I could find. Once I’d sewn all four wings I carefully cut them out and edged them. I then drew a body and after I’d coloured it in, attached the wings to it before putting the butterfly onto an embroidery hoop with plain calico and sewed the name of the butterfly underneath it.

Well that’s it for this week… I’m really pleased with this piece and love how the wings stand out from the fabric, its kind of like a pinned butterfly, only made of cotton and ya know not…real!

What do you think? Should they be bigger? I’d love some feedback on this piece. Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

p.s if you want to the what the butterfly looks like my photography post is HERE

Holly Blue Butterfly {Photography collection}

On By ArtyMissKIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Hello friends!

This weeks post is a butterfly centred photography collection.

I recently got the chance to photograph a new butterfly, I’ve never seen one of these before and I wanted to share it with you. Its been flying around for a couple of weeks but has never landed long enough for me to photograph. Its a Celastrina argiolus butterfly or Holly Blue, and it was so tiny!

Isn’t he gorgeous – it is male the females have more black on the upper wings.

The undersides of the wings are just as beautiful, originally when I saw it I thought the little guy was probably a Common Blue but the small black spots on the wing undersides distinguish the two types of butterfly.

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