Padfield

[Padfield]

It has rained for the last few days, sometimes heavily. Above about 1500m this has fallen as snow but where I live, at 1000m, spring flowers are thriving, including primroses and cowslips:





Gautama is still fine, if disturbingly green!



The flash in that picture makes him look particularly bright. In reality, he is well camouflaged and inconspicuous:



Other leps sitting it out until the warm months include brown hairstreaks ...



... and white admirals:



In that picture, the smaller leaf on the left is the hibernaculum. The larger leaf on the right is the last leaf the caterpillar fed on, still attached to the stem because of the silk tracks left by the caterpillar, and probably also by the silk he deliberately laid to fix the hibernaculum leaf.



These are the same two leaves back on 3rd September:



The terminal leaves have since fallen.

As we walked home from photographing that hibernaculum today, it began snowing in earnest. Fingers crossed, winter has finally arrived for real and Minnie and I can get some cross-country skiing in ...



Guy

[Padfield]

Well, if Gautama thought spring was coming he has been brought rudely back to reality. Temperatures have plummeted and although his branch was mostly bare this afternoon the rest of the world is deep in snow:



Minnie waited patiently while I took a few shots of him:



This is on the walk home:



On a quite different subject, Jack challenged me to paint a historic large copper, donated to the Natural History Museum by a friend of his, Peter Marren. The ultimate origins of the specimen are unknown, but its later history is described in Peter Marren's Rainbow Dust (see Pete's review of this book, here: http://www.dispar.org/reference.php?id=110). Jack gave a print of my picture to Peter Marren as a souvernir of his treasured specimen. As the large copper went extinct in Britain in 1851 we can be sure no one alive today was responsible for this individual's capture ...



Jack liked the dramatic, black background. It is easy to change this to any colour, as I painted the butterfly on a different layer from the background.



I've definitely found a new hobby for myself. My next paintings will be twin-spot fritillary, which, inexplicably, I've never seen - so I can make myself a web page for that species!

Guy

[Padfield]

I'm persisting with the late-night artwork!

Here's a male twin-spot fritillary from Italy. First, I imported a photo of a specimen (in fact, half a specimen) and traced the outline of the markings and venation:



Keeping that in an upper layer, and removing the original photo, I painted in the colours, using a photo of a living butterfly on the internet as a guide. Before doing the body and eyes, I reflected the image, to save time painting the left-hand side. As soon as I could, I removed the layer with the outline. This is the result:



Guy

[Pete Eeles]

VERY impressive, Guy!

Cheers,

- Pete

[David M]

Lovely artwork, Guy. How about a few pyrgus for ID purposes!!

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete and David. It's more patience and care than skill, but very satisfying all the same. And the more I do, the more I learn.

When I next get time, it will be the underside of a twin-spot fritillary, drawn in a living, not pinned, pose, to complete that page of my web site. I've photographed most of the difficult Pyrgus, so that's not a priority, though some of my pictures of them are poor, I must admit. Also Roger's given the world good ID charts for that group. After twin-spot is done, I think my next two will be oedippus and maturna, neither of which I'm likely to see in 2016.

Bitterly cold out here, and snowing more often than not. The only notable wildlife I've seen was a hare, today. What made it notable was that it was brown. I wasn't aware we had brown hares (the species) up here in the mountains - all the winter hares I've seen have been pure white, like big, fluffy snowballs running up hills. My impression, from the shape and size, was that this was a true brown hare, but my priority was to restrain Minnie, who got very excited when she caught wind of it!

Guy

[Goldie M]

Love your art work Guy, also Minnie in the snow Goldie

[Roger Gibbons]

Guy, I have half-decent undersides of hecate and oedippus you are welcome to use (original size if web images are not detailed enough). Last year I visited a site for oedippus near Chambéry - if that's reachable for you, I can give you details.

Regards

Roger

[NickMorgan]

Looking forward to seeing Minnie on skis!

[dilettante]

The only notable wildlife I've seen was a hare, today.

It will be gone tomorrow

[Jack Harrison]

DavidM

Lovely artwork, Guy. How about a few pyrgus for ID purposes!!

That gives me a [perhaps silly] idea.

Crafty but not strictly accurate, artwork could help distinguish between similar species by deliberately exaggerating the subtle i/d differences.

Take this from ukb


So for example, the floating chevrons could be illustrated in the artwork as floating more than in reality. It wouldn’t be accurate of course but would make such a subtle distinction easier to learn and remember.

Jack

[Padfield]

Thanks Goldie - there'll be more to come, when I can find time.

It's a kind offer, Roger, but I made a policy many years ago of only including my own pictures on my site. It will always be a personal site, never a complete, authoritative one (like UK Butterflies, for example!). On the other hand, an oedippus site near Chambéry would be very gratefully received. I think you know it would remain secret! Thank you.

Nick - she'll do the uphill bits on her own four feet and probably come down the hills in my backpack, as there's no way she could keep up. But I still haven't had a moment to get out.

An interesting idea, Jack. It already happens, in a way, as people tend to illustrate the 'best' examples they can find of any character. It actually distorts the photographic record somewhat, as individuals showing exaggerated diagnostic markings are easier to identify and so are more confidently displayed. Pale clouded yellow is a classic example. All the individuals on my site show the elongate, more pointy (than Berger's) wingshape quite clearly, but mainly because it's harder to be sure of the identity of individuals that don't.

Now that snowfall and winter storms have cleared most of the leaves from the honeysuckle plants, it is much easier to spot white admiral hibernacula. Here is one, with the caterpillar clearly visible:



This is what it looks like from another angle ...



... and in context:



Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Hello Guy,

I wouldn't presume to send you photos for inclusion on your site, my offer of hecate and oedippus underside photos was principally in respect of your artwork as you said you hadn't got photos to work from.

I'll send you maps of the oedippus location. We were very lucky last June that there was a brief break in the rain on an overcast day (in mid-June in southern France, it does happen) that allowed Tim and I to be shown the location by the local warden.

Roger

[Padfield]

I misunderstood you, Roger. Thanks - I will refer to your photos when I do those pictures. And thank you again for the location information - that's very exciting! Perhaps I will get oedippus this year ...

I forgot to say earlier: Dilletante - I was wondering who would be the first to add, 'gone tomorrow'!

Guy

[MikeOxon]

I am very interested in your butterfly drawing technique. It seems that computer illustration is particularly well suited to butterfly subjects, since the wings are essentially two-dimensional, largely eliminating the problems of light and shade on 3D surfaces, which bedevil illustrations of many animals.

I happened to be at a talk by Ian Lewington (a leading bird artist and brother of Richard), last week. Someone asked about deliberately falsifying images, in order to emphasis key distinguishing features, to which Ian replied that he does not do this, although he will ensure that his illustrations show the relevant areas as clearly as possible.

Ian made the point that an illustrator can use his knowledge and experience of a species to provide a 'baseline' image, against which an observer can evaluate what he sees in the field. In comparison, a photograph is necessarily of a specific individual, taken in particular lighting conditions. Inevitably, photographs are selective and rarely show a 'typical' individual and may also catch a momentary pose that is far from typical. The viewer of a photograph has no means of determining the conditions under which the photograph was taken, whereas a skilled illustrator will aim to make all his images conform to consistent standards.

My own feeling is that computer-based illustrations can be a useful means for ensuring consistent standards between various images.

Mike

[Padfield]

I agree completely - illustations are much more effective for identification than photographs, for the reasons you mention.

I don't really see why computers should make 3D subjects more difficult, though. I'm painting exactly as if with a brush ('Procreate' comes with a whole range of customisable pencils, pens and brushes, including pastels, oils, watercolours, wet and dry brushes &c.). Merging and blending colours is as easy as with real paint. I've completed the hindwing of my hecate underside and was pretty pleased with the 3D effect I got on the veins. The only real drawbacks I can see are the lack of texture in the paint itself - so the art is a pure image, not a 'thing' in itself - and the fact you can't really stand outside in the sun and paint, because you can't really see the screen.

I was invigilating mock exams this morning (that's how I was able to finish the underside ). In the afternoon it was so warm I decided to check out a local winter red admiral hotspot. There were none on the wing - probably because we haven't yet had enough continuous days of warmth. I also checked for brown hairstreak eggs. These are very thin on the ground this year and in about an hour I found just one pair:





Guy

[MikeOxon]

I don't really see why computers should make 3D subjects more difficult, though.

My mistake - I was conflating too many strands in my mind, without separating them out. I'm not familiar with modern computer painting software, so I had assumed that the tools are more basic than they probably are. I was also thinking that a 2D object is generally easier to transfer to a 2D medium, so reducing the demands on the human - computer interface.

[Padfield]

This is how it works now, Mike!



In fact, as you can see, I haven't finished the hindwing yet - but I did get a lot done while the kids struggled with their Mock English Literature exams. The outline came from a set specimen. The colours are based on Roger's photo, seen in the half-window on the right. The programme is Procreate, the stylus is an Apple Pencil and the machine is an iPad Pro. Oh - and that's you on the computer screen in the background!

Guy

[Padfield]

I set off quite early for the valley this morning but by the time I reached the Queen of Spain site, at about 10h30, it was overcast and very cold. So, instead of heading for the hotspots I climbed the hill a bit and searched for purple hairstreak eggs - in vain. These have been extremely hard to find in recent years. Then at 11h15 the first glimpses of sun appeared and between 11h30 and 12h15 it was mostly very sunny and sometimes warm. I headed to the nearest Queen hotspot and quickly found this individual warming up:



This was rapidly followed by at least another 7 individuals - but more probably another 9. At one time I watched three together in the air. None of the ones I photographed matched the ones I photographed on 19th and 20th December last year. They were all small, rather dark and relatively fresh, so I suspect they had hibernated as pupae and emerged in the last few days. Here are a few more:









Minnie knew exactly what I was watching. She would wait patiently while I took pictures, then move in to get a closer look herself:



She also knows that butterflies, unlike grasshoppers, are things we watch without eating.

This photo was taken at 12h20, just after the clouds covered the sun again:



This photo was taken in the valley floor, giving a feel of how cold it is when the sun is not shining:



No other butterflies were on the wing. I walked back via a good place for clouded yellows but by then it was cold.

Guy

[Wurzel]

Great shots Guy and a fantastically trained dog...sorry Butterfly Hound, I wonder if the Kennel Club would consider adding it as a class to their roster?

Have a goodun

Wurzel