Lois Deluca and her husband Ron have been part of Kelsey Community for a number of years. Both are very talented and active in Kelsey and well as the Hancock area. The illustrations referred to in the article below are on display in Hancock at the town hall for the month of July. If anyone one is interested in learning more about butterflies by purchasing the book, I'm sure Lois could arrange that.
BUTTERFLIES
Deep in the winter snows of February 1996 I received a call from my son-in-law Stephen Walker asking me if I would be interested in doing some illustrations for a proposed book. The book, as it was, consisted of field notes Warren Kiel wrote for Audubon based on his forty years of collecting butterflies on, in, and around the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The summer before I had shown Stephen a series of watercolor paintings of the wild flowers in our fields that I had been painting. I had never painted a butterfly but it sounded like an interesting project. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.
For the first six months I spent all my time trying to decide the best way to paint the butterflies. I read about butterflies, went through every old magazine we had in the house looking for pictures and articles, watched nature videos and started to sketch outside when spring arrived. I began to haunt the bookstores and Miranda Levin sent books from Audubon. Especially valuable was a copy of Holland's The Butterfly Book sent by Stephen. My first attempts at drawing were challenging to say the least as butterflies required developing new techniques. My husband Ron, an artist by training, was an invaluable critic and supporter throughout the entire project from the time the butterflies first began to emerge on paper.
Originally Audubon asked for ten color pages, the rest were to be black and white. I asked myself how can you do justice to a butterfly in black and white. I tried pencil, pen and ink, and after many, many trials painted a wing with ivory black watercolor paint that looked good to me. This was the technique I settled on. The paper and brushes were very important. I used Arches 140 lb. hot pressed watercolor paper, a paper with a very smooth surface that was a little forgiving and allowed the fine detail the drawings required. I found pen and ink too harsh so I used it sparingly and depended on very fine sable brushes.
Six months into the project I still had not finished painting one butterfly. I made a list of all the butterflies in Warren Kiel's text, along with their larval hosts, preferred nectar flowers, their habitat and the time of year they are active. I selected the butterflies I would draw and began to look for the flowers and plants I would need. I decided that all of the flowers and branches would be drawn from life, most of them collected in our fields. Stephen sent both rocks and plants to me through the mail and others he brought down from New Hampshire when the family came to visit. The intricate patterns on the wing of a butterfly were a huge problem. I was well into the project when I discovered the W.J. Holland Book had a life size drawing of the wing structure of each species. By using a tracing of the wing structure the patterns fell into place.
The color paintings were a whole new problem. Warren Kiel sent a box of the rarer specimens from his collection allowing me to study these rarer butterflies up close. When I had no specimen to work from I had to depend on pictures. Every picture and field guide had subtle differences in color often making the right judgment difficult. Throughout the project nearly every stroke was tried out first on scrap paper. The flowers had to be drawn and painted quickly as they soon drooped and faded. I transferred the drawing to watercolor paper by using a light box. Then, I redrew everything as I painted so the details would be sharp and precise.
I spent hours learning the anatomy of butterflies and caterpillars. Each one is unique. I painted sample butterfly wings, cut them out and placed them on the flowers. I bought a good camera, took pictures, used magnifying glasses and my nearsighted eyes to paint the fine details. I raised butterflies from eggs to see the life cycle in detail, how they mate and lay eggs, and watch them emerge from their chrysalises. For six years I immersed myself in them and gained tremendous knowledge about their world and their lives, and in the fall of 2002 I delivered the last of butterfly paintings. I now feel a special thrill when I see one of "my butterflies" on a flower or flying over the fields. I found a magical world among the butterflies and feel very privileged to have had this unique opportunity, and I am thrilled to be able to share it with others.
Lois DeLuca