Drawing and Painting Insects

2013·32.06 MB·English

by  Andrew Tyzack

Drawing and Painting
INSECTS
Andrew Tyzack
THE CROWOOD PRESS
First published in 2014 by The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.crowood.com
This e-book first published in 2014
© Andrew Tyzack 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
ISBN 978 1 84797 625 3
Frontispiece: Bombus hortorum, oil on canvas by Andrew Tyzack.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Katrina van Grouw
Introduction
1. FIRST FIND YOUR INSECT
2. INSECT ANATOMY FOR THE ARTIST
3. DRAWING INSECTS
4. INSECTS IN THE FIELD
5. PAINTING INSECTS
6. INSECTS IN PRINTMAKING
7. INSECTS IN ART
Bibliography
Further information
Index
The Five Queens, diamond wheel engraved glass by Ronald Pennell.
FOREWORD
When Andrew Tyzack asked me to write the Foreword for this book you could
have knocked me down with a feather. Why me? I thought. After all, my sum of
insect art comprises forty or so illustrations for a single book over two decades
ago. Not only were they of micro-moths (clothes moths to most of us) but they
were almost all of the heads of micro-moths. If that isn’t obscure enough, they
were the heads of micro-moths from South-east Asia. It wasn’t a best-seller.
But to return to the honour bestowed upon me by the author of this book, I
didn’t ask questions. Andrew obviously had his reasons, and after all, I don’t
know how many people he had asked before me.
Like Andrew, my opinion of insects was shaped by my experiences in early
childhood, and my experiences in childhood were shaped by popular names and
folklore. ‘Bloodsuckers’ – really just harmless Lily Beetles – filled me with
horror. Earwigs were the stuff of nightmares. I genuinely believed that those
noisome bags of living pus – ‘Leatherjackets’ – would make me wet the bed.
And there was that traumatic occasion gathering caterpillars in the school
playground when my friend Nigel Turnham and I spotted the same magnificent
specimen at the same time. Nigel grabbed it first. I opened my mouth to protest,
and just at that moment Nigel threw it in my face…
I could never quite forgive insects after that. Far too many legs for comfort,
and a disturbing tendency to touch you when you’re least expecting it. So it’s
remarkable therefore, that looking through this book, on almost every page
there’s a picture that I would absolutely love to have on my wall. And it’s not
just the pretty butterflies. Whether they fill you with delight or disgust, insects
are possibly the most aesthetically rich, the most romantic, the most enigmatic,
and sensually alluring animals on the planet. Yes, I’ll say it – insects are sexy.
Enter the world of barely imagined beings: creatures that see in colours we could
never even visualize; follow the pheromones through a mysterious nocturnal
world; perform your waggle dance in the hive; survive the chemical carnage of
an ant battlefield; become a Mayfly and live for just one day…
With insects, it’s not about what we see and understand – it’s about exploring
the realms of the imagination. It would be science fiction, if it weren’t science
fact. As an artist and a scientist (of sorts), I have a great interest in the trade-off
between accuracy and aesthetics in wildlife art. For example, is it possible to
know so much that it stifles the wonderment you might otherwise enjoy? Or that
in striving to get every maxilla, every antenna, in its rightful place you forget to
express your feelings? With insects at least you can guarantee that the more we
understand the more we must surely be amazed and inspired.
In this wonderful book Andrew Tyzack has generously shared his knowledge
and experience for the sake of all like-minded artists, aiding us in our field
drawing, our moth trapping, butterfly collecting, bee-keeping and even getting
the most out of visits to zoos and museum collections. I urge everyone using this
book to take advantage of it. You don’t have to be an entomologist to draw and
paint insects, but you’re missing an incredible treat if you choose not to learn
from them.
My brief period illustrating the micro-moths for The Natural History
Museum (long before I was employed there as a curator of birds) was a very
special time. I’d just graduated from the Royal College of Art and, having spent
five years saving my pennies, was about to take part in an expedition to the
South American rainforest. Would I collect some moths for the museum? Of
course I would! But instead of furnishing me with a moth trap, I was instructed
to stuff some old fishnet stockings with feathers and hang them up in trees. Oh,
and pee on them first. Moths may be attracted to light, but there’s nothing like
the smell of stale urine to really get ‘em going!
To quickly change the subject, I’d like to finish off with a suitably
Lepidopteran limerick that I thought up whilst gazing through my microscope at
those tiny heads:
There was a poor man from Bowmore
Who lived on the moths in his store
But he ate one too many
With furry antennae
And coughed up the moths on the floor.
Katrina van Grouw
Aylesbury, 2013
Self-Portrait with Death’s-head Hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos), oil on linen by Andrew Tyzack.
INTRODUCTION
When I was a small boy my father was driving me along a dark country lane,
and we could see moths in the car’s headlights. He told me that every night of
the year a moth flies somewhere even on Christmas day. In my child’s
wonderment I took this literally to mean that no matter how cold or frozen
Britain was, somewhere a single moth took to the wing and fluttered under a
silvery moon and over twinkling ice and snow. My father obviously meant that
in Britain moths flew all year round including in the winter, but he had started a
romance within me with all things creepy crawly. In the writing of this book I
have been fortunate to be able to revisit the magic of those days when for a child
the world was full of wonderful ‘beasties’ yet to be discovered.
When I was a student at the Royal College of Art we always spent Fridays at
London Zoo, where we drew and painted the animals from life. This was a
fundamental requirement for our Professor, John Norris Wood’s approach to
drawing and painting animals. Most of us already drew from life and understood
perfectly the difference between a copied photograph and an original piece of
art, carefully researched and crafted, using where possible live specimens in
their natural habitats for our models. Certainly, John’s own insect and reptile art
represents a lifetime of studying creatures from a first-hand perspective and
often in their own habitats. In this book I have endeavoured to use live insects as
my models as often as it was practicable. I think that the reader will see a
determined approach to drawing and painting living insects which, if not
available, can be substituted with mounted specimens or post mortem specimens
to make the best possible models. The artist can then call upon the memory of
the particular attitudes, habits and posture of the living insect to render the
drawing lifelike, preserving the essential characteristics of a moment. Of course
insects can move with speeds that the human eye just cannot perceive or they
inhabit the night and can’t be seen. There are techniques that can aid an artist to
overcome these limitations and photography coupled with drawn studies can be
very useful.
While still a student at the Royal College I learnt that it was easy to gain
access to the vast collections of London’s Natural History Museum, and its sister