The Butterfly Ranch

In a few short years, my milkweed (which I bought in a three inch pot at a Huntington Library plant sale) has spread throughout my garden, as, being a weed, it is wont to do.  If you plant milkweed, monarch butterflies will come.  The population has increased each year, so the striped caterpillars covered the plants for weeks in the fall.  The plants are close to defoliated now, but where you can find leaves, buds and seedpods, there are still caterpillars.  I stopped counting the chrysalises when I got to 50.  And the monarchs aren't my only butterflies.  I have lots of passion vine, which is the host plant for the gulf fritillary.  The other butterflies I see include skippers, blues, giant swallowtails, tiger swallowtails, sulphers and painted ladies.  I've had rare sightings of mourning cloaks and red admirals and something kind of small that I can't identify.  I have plans to plants anise, coneflower, lantana, and cabbage.  I will be covered in butterflies.  Happy new year, blog readers.  May you too be covered in butterflies or whatever your heart desires.

Life Continues

Seen on a leaf of the pumpkin vine: a pair of gulf fritillaries, ensuring another generation.

Gulf Fritillary

Here is a gulf fritillary in the pear tree. I took the reference photograph early in the morning and caught the butterfly sleeping. They don't stay still long when they're awake. It was a few a months ago as you can see because the tree had leaves. These gulf fritillaries are ubiquitous in my garden. In the afternoon in season, there is always a crowd of them. I take them a little for granted in fact, and have nearly forgotten that they are exotic and beautiful, as is the passion vine that lured them to my home. They are medium-sized butterflies with proportionately long wings with silvery spots on the underside.

I'm fairly happy with this painting, especially the shadows in the folds of the wings which were tricky, and the branches which effortlessly sprung from my paint brush like magic.

Thanks to George Liang, who painted me painting, I have a new profile picture.

King of Butterflies

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes a monarch butterfly will catch a glimpse or a whiff of my fancy milkweed and descend on my yard for a bit. The yard is regularly dotted with gulf fritillaries, so you wouldn't think I'd even notice one more orange butterfly. But the monarch is larger and much more substantial. It moves with a casual lumbering grace that brings to mind the most attractive men. It drinks deeply and poses for the camera. I call my husband and tell him the king of butterflies is visiting our garden. I could have said there is a monarch. But I love the sound of "King of Butterflies;" it reminds me of Oberon. My dearest wish for a moment is that the butterfly will choose to lay eggs in my garden. I don't know; it could have been the queen.

Tiger Swallowtail

I came upon the Windows to the Words challenge blog, just about a month ago. I had just missed the birds. Lovely birds. Then there were butterflies. I can't pick among all creation; how could I say I like birds better than giant sequoias, or babies' heads more than the moon? I will tell you this though; I have but one tattoo, and it is a butterfly.

I still probably wouldn't have participated in the challenge. I rarely paint from photographs that somebody else took. It just seems slightly less like art to me, although I don't why. But I took another look at the website, and I saw that nobody had painted the tiger swallowtail. So it needed to be done.

This looks ever so slightly like Tibetan art to me, especially the bright blue spots in the center of tail, and the background to some extent. This seems more like a bit of good fortune than design.

A Couple of Days Away

Optimally, I suppose I'd wait a couple of days to post this. This isn't the painting that I worked on last night, that I'm only an hour or so from finishing, that I want to enter in a show. This is something I did tonight because I was thinking about valentines. I like valentines a lot. Not crazy about the holiday, but I think the cards are (or at least can be) quite wonderful. I'm mad for heart shapes. I don't know why. I doodle them constantly. I could be on the phone with the IRS, and I'd doodle heart shapes. Someone could get the wrong idea.

Discovery!

There is a macro lens setting on my digital camera. We've had the camera at least a year, and I didn't know there was a macro lens setting until my son showed me yesterday. He showed some beautiful pictures of lime blossoms and praying mantis eggs, and then the macro lens setting. I was able to get moderately good insect pictures previously, if the subjects posed on a wall. The sphinx moth is my picture. My son got the two-headed butterfly. Not yesterday, of course, because it is still winter.