Heliconius erato

Butterfly
October 2003
Materials:  colored pencil over black ink

The cover of a card we sent to Kristina, to celebrate what we knew would be a successful dissertation defense -- completing her metamorphosis into a Doctor.

I went to an exhibit of Costa Rican butterflies at Brookside Gardens, where hundreds of live specimens were allowed to fly free inside a greenhouse. This was one of the varieties I saw there.

artwork

For those of you in the know: yes, that really is its genus and species.

I've always loved the hand-drawn illustrations in old anatomy and biology textbooks. "Griffin and Sabine" brought some of that artwork back into the popular press. This card was my first attempt to reproduce that style. I did the drawing and cross-hatching in black ink, then filled in with colored pencil.