Keith and the Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly

This is one of my ArtRage paintings: Keith and the Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly

I know, it's still a long ways from excellence, but I am working on my 10,000 hours.
.
Today, we rode out motorcycles through the rain to the Nature Center at Metrobeach, had a delightful walk (the sun came out!), and after walking, went into the nature center.  The naturalist allowed us to watch two monarch caterpillars pupating into chrysalises. She showed us eggs and tiny babies and chrysalises ready to turn into monarchs and we saw an adult she had just released outside.  Among the other things we saw were juvenile black-crowned night herons, several of them, swans and ducks and flowers and lots of frogs and toads. I painted this during dinner.

To see the image better (small details of life cycle), click on the image to enlarge it.

Supernatural experience, 1982

Oh to Sprout Wings and Fly

"One exciting day last summer, a group of Campfire kids found a dragonfly nymph climbing up a branch along the Bog Trail. Suddenly it began to look strange. The back enlarged and it appeared to have what the kids called 'eyes' under its skin. The back of the thorax (shoulders) burst open and the adult dragonfly began to slowly emerge. All of us watched transfixed as the dragonfly crawled out of its nymphal skin and ever-so-slowly pumped a fluid from special reservoirs (the 'eye-like' structures) under its skin d into the abdomen. It gradually elongated and became exquisitely thin. Finally, after beating its wings several times, the dragonfly suddenly flew rapidly away. The children and I were thrilled!" 1982 (Photo from Stoney Creek
2008)

Keeping Company

Keeping Company, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click to view larger.

Wordless Wednesday: "Look what I caught!"

baby woodchucks

The most exciting thing at St. John's Marsh were two baby woodchucks--they were SO cute--they weren't afraid of us on the bikes--they didn't move and we almost ran over them because they were in the middle of the very narrow trail, but when we got off they hissed and spit at us like little kittens and then turned and ran into the tall weeds. It was very cool! :-D Unfortunately it all happened so quickly we didn't get any pictures. Too bad.