National Insect Week 23rd- 29th June 2014

Insects, especially moths, have found their way into my artwork in recent years. My initial pictures of moths were drawn in an old, bound collection of sheet music for piano. Although it showed evidence that it was much used and had some damage, it was clearly treasured by its owner and the occasional tear had been carefully mended. The patina of age appealed to me and I saw the potential of the pages as a background on which to paint and draw. Its ‘moth-eaten’ quality suggested my subject matter and I set to work straight away depicting the exquisite shapes and markings of native moth species.

A few days later, a gift from a friend of a stained and scuffed leather book cover set me off in a new direction. I started to search for antiquarian books which were no longer in pristine condition, preferring books with broken spines and missing pages. I found that the colours and patterns of the marbled papers echoed those of moth wings and enjoyed finding the right book cover on which to depict a particular moth.  It was on one of these shopping sprees that I found an exquisite, little Psalm Book with delicate, red-edged pages which inspired me to do my first mixed-media drawing of a moth on an open book, its wings spread across the fluttering pages.