July 12, 2012

butterflies butterflies!

Purple Spotted Swallowtail Butterfly 20x20"
Original watercolor on paper, mounted

Graphium weiskei (Purple Spotted Swallowtail) are among my new favorite swallowtail butterflies.  Look at those beautiful wings and the stark black swooping tails!  This particular butterfly resides primarily in Papua New Guinea and Australia zones and has several brothers and sisters with slight color variations (see below).  The undersides are just as pretty, don't you think?  They are mirrow copies of the upsides, except in brown.

via
In my search for references I stumbled upon an amazing Etsy seller who sells the real thing!  I've been wanting to start a little collection of my own and am leaning toward the sage and crimson (big surprise there)...





Which one is your favorite??



1 comment:

Julie Cottrell said...

i love this! and your blog is so snazzy girl... ps congrats on the linkin park show! big time girl. ;)