I love beautiful bugs–don’t you?
Spoonflower has a Retro Bugs challenge that I wanted to enter, so I created some beautiful bugs–and I want to share them with you.
Do you like beetles? What about jeweled beetles? Let me know in the comments.
My reasons for entering this challenge are complex. As far as I’m concerned, not all bugs are beautiful. Some of them are really ugly and some are dangerous, and I don’t particularly love them. I don’t, for instance, have any appreciation for cockroaches or ticks or mosquitoes. I dislike most spiders and scorpions, and almost any kind of fly. Wasps and centipedes can be interesting and sometimes even colorful, but not in a way that makes me want to get close to them.
Click through to purchase this beautiful bees fabric on Spoonflower
But–I really do like certain types of beautiful bugs. Take, for instance, bees.
Bees are beautiful.
I love honey bees because of honey. I also like them because they make beeswax and pollenate flowers, and they look so cute while they’re doing it. But–I also appreciate bumblebees and stingless bees.
Once upon a time, I received a Bug Lovers Award…
As part of graduation from 8th grade, our elementary school held an 8th grade banquet and gave out funny awards. I was awarded the “Bug Lover’s Award”: a silver-painted sparkplug “bug” with soldered wire wings, nuts for eyes, and wire antennae. It was so ugly, it was beautiful–and I loved it. It disappeared a while back, but I still remember it fondly.
I came by that award honestly. These stingless bees colonized the edge of the soccer field above our dorm (I attended boarding school overseas). I thought those bees were really neat. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of letting some other kids know that they were stingless. Sadly, kids being kids, they didn’t share my love of bees. Their first impulse was to smash the colony and kill the bees! I found myself standing guard and fending off all comers in protection of my beloved bees! I don’t know who told the adults what was going on, but they found out.
If it had been the only time that something like that happened, my appreciation for many things bugly might have gone unremarked, but… I caught fireflies in a coffee can at another station and took them to school with me. Then, I got in trouble over a grasshopper (because I put it down my roomie’s back). And–I’m pretty sure that my dorm parents noticed me playing with some beetles.
One of my teachers complained that anything would distract me from paying attention in school. “Even a butterfly.” (her words!)
Dad laughed, and told her, “Especially a butterfly.”
And–so I received the Bug Lovers Award.
Some bugs are really B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L.
Over the years, I’ve created quite a bit of artwork featuring bugs. This is just a small sample:
Fireflies… Click through to purchase this fabric on Spoonflower.
This is just one of three different styles of dragonflies that I’ve created. All of them are available on Spoonflower.
Monarch Butterflies gifts on Zazzle: click through to purchase.
Hares and sulphur butterflies on Zazzle: click through purchase.
Click through to purchase night owl and moth fabric from Spoonflower.
My new Shiny Jeweled Beetles artwork isn’t available for sale–yet–but here are a few more closeups to pique your interest:
Contact me if you would like to request some special bug-related artwork.
If you can’t stand bugs of any kind, I do have plenty of other artwork with no bugs in it. I hope you find something you like!