Chasing Butterflies, Part II

Because I was unhappy with the first set of butterflies, I went back to the drawing board and made a second set using the same techniques (making the pattern, tracing the pattern onto BFK Rives, cutting, coloring, adding iridescent medium, felting the wings into the wool bodies, and adding wire antennae). The second set has smaller bodies, thinner wire antennae, and slightly larger wings with a different pattern on them. This time I only used the iridescent medium on the white spots on the wings instead of the whole wing. I think it looks better because it makes the white pop when under glass and you can see the detail on the wings much better.

Here is a view of the top of the butterfly:

Here is the bottom of the butterfly:

After the butterflies were finished I mounted them to the birch branch:

Here is a close-up of the butterflies on the branch: 

Along with the butterflies, I added one emerging from a cocoon: 

...And a caterpillar made of felted wool and glass beads that were the same colors as the butterflies' wings:

To finish the piece I covered the bottom plate with moss and added a piece of birch bark, on which I mounted one of the butterflies:

The finished piece is under a large glass bell jar. Hopefully I'll be able to convince my photographer brother to take a picture of the piece under glass, because my pictures don't do it justice:

 So this is the first piece in my "Vegan Taxidermy" series, I call this "Life Cycle of the Blue-Eyed Butterfly: Hyacintho Oculus Papilio."

Chasing Butterflies, part I

While flipping through a magazine I came upon an article that featured the set of a period picture set in Victorian England. I can't remember what movie it was or even what magazine, but what caught my eye was in the background of one of the pictures, sitting on a side table was a bell jar filled with amazing blue butterflies. I really wanted my own bell jar of butterflies, but since I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea of having a bunch of dead animals under glass, I decided to make a batch of hand-made butterflies to mount.

Using stiff paper for wings was a pretty obvious choice, so armed with some scraps of BFK Reeve paper and a couple of books on butterfly identification, I drew some templates for the wings. I figured out the patters for the front and backs of the wings that I wanted, and drew the designs in colored pencil.

I wanted the bodies to be dimensional, so I decided to make them out of needle-felted wool.  I started by making a little cylinder of the wool with leaving a bit of un-felted wool at one end.

I then folded the loose roving over the wings and felted the wings into the roving.

When the bodies were done I added wire for the legs and antennae. To finish the butterflies I applied a liquid plastic to the ends of the antennae.

I liked them overall, but they weren't quite right so I made a second batch. I'll show you those in part II!