Thursday, November 26, 2009

Blast the cicadas

Drawing 646

Drawing 647

Drawing 648

Drawing 649

Drawing 650

Dear neglected Blog,
Sorry it has been so long since I posted. Hallowe'en was a long time ago. My apologies.

For me, summer always begins with the racket of the cicadas, and they have been singing up a storm in the last two or three weeks. Some evenings they're so loud I have to shut the front door so I can hear the tv (some nights I have to shut the front door because the feral neighbours are carousing on their front lawn and they're so loud I can't hear the tv. I think I prefer the cicadas; at least I know they'll shut up when the temperature gets below a certain point. Not so the ferals).

While the constant cicada buzz gets wearing, I can't detest them. Up close, they are very beautiful, a gorgeous green with glistening gold highlights, particularly on their wings. And big insects, too. Once, I saw a sparrow trying to catch a cicada, and it was nearly as big as the bird - quite a large meal for a little bird (I didn't see the denouement, I hope the cicada escaped). It's the boys that make all the noise, trying to attract a mate. For a long time, I thought they were like grasshoppers, creating that hullaballoo by rubbing their legs together, but I discovered that they actually have special membranes (tymbals) that they snap back and forth to create loud, almost continuous clicks. Fascinating! Perhaps I'll be a biologist in another life :)

In other news, I am preparing for another art exhibition in December. Decisions, decisions, what to include? I'm slowly winnowing the wheat from the chaff, and will likely try to complete a couple of things I'm working on currently, too. It's always the most recent work with which I'm infatuated. At the moment, I'm painting loose canvas (ie not stretched on a frame) in various ways, to be ripped up into strips and oblongs to sew back together randomly, found objects attached, and then put back on stretchers. I'm having fun with it.

1 comment:

Caroline M said...

I think that 647 would make a fantastic earflap hat, twisted knit stitches on a purl background would give the definition to the fins.