Our Fasination With Pretty Bugs - art inspired by the dragonfly and other insects

One of my favorite things is to design art with dragonflies and ladybugs. What could this fascination be? Aren't girls supposed to hate bugs?

I am not sure I would like a real dragonfly to land on my hand. I have held many ladybugs though.

Butterflies are another insect that are very beautiful. I have had them land on me as well and am fine with that. I also like to plant my garden to attract butterflies to it through the types of flowers planted in it.

There are several bugs I consider beautiful: dragonflies, butterflies, ladybugs, cotton harleguin, dogbane beetles. What is the difference between these bugs and a centipede or potato bug? Could it be just the fact that they are ugly that creates such revulsion? Why are pretty bugs acceptable and ugly ones so abhorrent?

Both of the pink dragonfly(above) and the lady bug(below) are art I have created. The lady bug was a school project from college. I took a computer wall paper and hand vectored shapes to create it rather than use a rendering softwear. Those types of softwear were not nearly as good as Corel X5's now, and even that is not as good to me as doing it yourself. The dragon fly is done in Photoshop. Some bugs are not always as pretty in reality as how we represent them in our art, but that can really be said of almost any subject.

Here I have shown a pill bug. I used it to show you the difference between computer rendering and hand rendering from a photographic image.

This is really more of a neutral bug to me. They like moist places so if they do get in your house they will dry out quick, but if left outside each bug can live about two years. Although it is not what I would consider an ugly bug I would not necessarily choose it for my artwork normally.

This is not the same as painting or drawing, but if you are weak in those areas you can still do this with a computer program.

I suppose if I changed the colors and drew them as both in their "pill" form as well as stretched out they would probably be a fine example of bug art.

The most disgusting bug I ever ran into was a potato bug. They can bite also so I definitely don't want to ever run into one again.

Another disgusting bug is the house centipede. They like dark damp basements. For this very reason I do not like to ever have my washing machine in the basement. They are fast and creepy.

Here are pictures of the two bugs I would definitely classify as UGLY bugs. The potato bug is relatively common in southern California so few people who have lived there for a while can say they never saw one. The other is a picture of a house centipede. These actually scare me more than mice, but less than rats. I don't think they are poisonous like some centipedes, but still very repulsive.