Tiger Moths

I have become obsessed with Tiger Moths.  This all started last summer.  The amazing specimen you can see on the left lived near where I keep my bike. It used to flit around me as I set off for work.  I managed to get the photo you see here but never managed to capture the vivid scarlet of the under-wing (if that is  indeed the correct term).  This started an ongoing obsession with Tiger Moths.  I obtained a few images and painted them as part of my mini mix collection. 

The one above is the first one I attempted and in many way the best.  It helps that the subject provide most of the effort involved in dreaming up a composition.  This one is on stone and I like the effect of it.  I think I caught quite well. To get the slight furry quality I used impasto medium.

Before attempting "my" Tiger Moth, I wanted to attempt one on a leafy background.  I wanted the moth to pop, so  I made the background muted.  It didn't quite work and the black is to severe. The contrast is too great.  Onto my moth where I yellowed the moth slightly and made the black more blue.  The moth is fine but again the background is a bit too muted.

Then I wanted to try and different coloured Tiger Moth so I found a picture of a yellow specimen.  This is better in the original than in the photograph but the colours could do with being more vivid.  I left Tiger Moths for a while but came back to them recently.  Following on my recent exhibition and the success of the "Orphan" painting I decided to produce some more abstract Tiger moths in the same style.

Both are produced in fundamentally the same way.  For the background paint is dragged with a palette knife across the board (they are all board, not canvas).   I am particularly pleased with the gold.

Instead of painting from a drawing I produced simplistic shapes with simplistic designs marked on them.  Thick impasto paint.

I am pleased with the result. For the second one I reduced the image even further to just a black and white shape, with black and white markings.

I accidentally photographed it upside down, but actually the image does something different  in this rotation.  I may well do more in the future.  For now they can all be seen on the Mini mix page.