Beetle Mania

I painted a series of 24 various beetles a few months back. A friend of mine came to visit here in Costa Rica with a new camera and proceeded to take a picture of everything. I didn't pay much attention to his photos of the toilet and the kitchen sink, but I took notice at a photo of a beetle prowling among some rice hulls. I had never painted a beetle, so "What the Hey, Why Not". While painting him, I kinda got caught up in the intricacy of the litlle creature, his glossy sheen, his little spiny legs, antennae, and overall appearance. The painting turned out pretty good, I thought, so I looked up more beetle pictures on the Internet. Seems that there is a very large group of folks who are fascinated by beetles....I found dozens of websites on Coleoptera...beetles. The variety, colors and types of beetles is awesome. So I started painting a few more, and it was like eating potato chips...ya can't stop with one.
I urge you to investigate the beetles we have roaming this planet....mind-boggling. In painting these fellows and paying such close attention to the details of each species brought me a deeper sense of appreciation to something I had always rather taken for granted. Size matters. If a beetle was, say, 20 times larger than he is, I'll just bet we would really sit up and pay notice when one of em flew around our patio lights. I'll feature a beetle selection from time to time and go into some really interesting facts about em. For now, I've posted my first beetle painting, an 8x10 acrylic on canvas and my friend's photo I used for reference.