Acrylic on gallery canvas.30x30""Summertime Blues" shows the White Admiral butterfly with a favourite native plant: Wild Bergamot. The origin of its name 'white admiral' is said to be a corruption of the original 18th-century name 'white admirable'. And here I've thought that it was because the stripes looked military! In any case, like the red admiral, it is a beauty! I have simplified the markings to a degree. They are pretty unmistakeable even with just a slash of the white on each wing. Our meadow is surrounded by a forest. Because the tree foliage at the meadow edge is munched on by deer, a 4 foot high band of darkness surrounds the meadow. I love how this 'browse line' provides an inkiness in which the meadow flowers glow. The blackness of the admiral butterfly's wings lends to creating a 'lost edge' when placed beside the dark shape of the browse line. And then the white spots glow!
