This February my family and I took a special trip to Florence, Italy to celebrate my husband and I’s milestone birthday. One of the places I enjoyed visiting most during the holiday was the Museum of Natural History, La Specola. This painting is from a photograph I took of one of the museum collections of butterflies. The museum was full of room after room of animals, insects, fish and plants as well as geological treasures and fantastic wax anatomical sculptures that were used to help study the human body as well as those of many other species.

At Thursday Art club in February we were tasked to paint something in water colour with a nature theme. I decided to capture the image of these butterflies. This was a difficult challenge as I don’t usually use water colours. I enjoyed the process of drawing out the image and painting in layers using watercolours. To add details and finish the piece I added pencil crayon in some areas to provide definition and to add some details.

Here are some photographs I took in the museum- enjoy!