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