Maria Sibylla Merian was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator who was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1647. At a time when insects were thought to be “beasts of the devil,” her beautiful and accurate paintings revolutionized the science of entomology. Her painstaking observation skills refuted the prevailing notion at the time that insects spontaneously arose from the mud. She described the life cycles of 186 insect species and through her lavish and accurate paintings, she was the first to document the life stages of many insects.
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“I collected all the caterpillars I could find in order to study their metamorphosis.”
So, for today, let’s be inspired by the world’s first entomologist and begin our study of bugs.
Materials needed:
- A way to capture insects to study – old plastic containers with holes poked in the lid, or “bug catchers” you may have from the dollar or toy store…
- a trowel or small shovel – for digging up bugs!
- watercolour paper, pencil and pencil crayons or tray of watercolours with small watercolour brush. If you don’t have watercolour paper or watercolours – that’s OK! You can use copy paper and anything to colour – crayons, pencil crayons, markders etc.
First, you’ll need to go out for a walk or go scavenging in your yard to find bugs. Look under rocks, tree stumps, on just in the garden. You may want to dig a small hole and see what lies beneath the soil. Once you’ve gathered a few “samples” you are ready to return home and begin sketching!
My daughter decided she had had enough e-learning today and decided to join me! After you have your samples, sketch what you see. I used watercolour paper, and my daughter used her sketchbook. Here are our examples… We didn’t actually “catch” the dragonfly or honeybee, but we did see them. The fly was tricky to catch and I was really happy to find a grasshopper, caterpillar, ladybug, and a few beetles.
Once, your sketches are complete, you can go over them with a sharpie or any permanent marker. It is very important that the ink you use is permanent or else when you add the watercolour paint, the black ink will all smear. If you’re not sure, test on copy paper first.
Once this is done, you are ready to paint in your insects with watercolours and a small brush or colour in with pencil crayons or markers.
You can colour each one in as realistically as possible in the style of Maria Merian as I did.
Or, You can paint bright colours in blocks over the whole image – without trying to stay in the lines, for a completely different end result!
After you are finished – you can let the insects go back into the garden.
Display on the wall for all to see! See if you can find the scientific name for all your specimens as well – For example, the scientific name for ladybug is Coccinella septempunctata.
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