Friday, July 8, 2011

Have You Ever Really Looked...

... at a cicada?  This one is a green and gold work of art. . .

. . . with eyes of cabochon jade . . .

. . . and wings so lovely that one artist makes earrings of them.
I'm thinking it would be fun to do an embroidered cicada with silk and metallic threads -- and jade beads for eyes.
Look at the way the veins in the wings shade from green to yellow to orange -- magnificent!
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18 comments:

Brian Miller said...

that actually would be a pretty cool piece of art...they are cool...except in MD when I lived there and we got swarmed...pretty nasty crunching under your feet or falling on your head like rain when they crash into the buildings...

Ms. A said...

Oh the sounds they make! Awesome photos!

Thérèse said...

They are lovely as long as it's not bed time!!

Victoria said...

They're beautiful! We don't have them here, so I've never seen one before.

Victoria said...

They're beautiful! We don't have them here, so I've never seen one before.

Martin said...

Extraordinary!

Desiree said...

Those wings are too beautiful! Our cicadas are brown. Very uninspiring.

Unknown said...

Oh yes Vicki.. I have looked and looked in wonder. The older I get the more I look at everything with such awe. Your photos are wonderful. Those eyes! Those wings! What a mystery it all is!

Pat in east TN said...

They are quite beautiful, and your pictures are outstanding, but yikes their sound can be quite intense!

Louise said...

Just lovely. There are no cicadas here any more, we've become too suburbanized, with too many people loading their lawns down with chemicals and it has killed them all off. I would love to see one again.

Christine said...

This is the first time I've seen a cicada that color; it's beautiful. I love the ones with red eyes too. Down here ours are just plain old brown with no striking colors.

Vicki Lane said...

This is the only one I've seen here this year. t was sitting on a tomato leaf and nicely allowed me to bring him to the porch for a photography session. Eventually it flew away.

I've always liked paying attention to stuff -- but first trying to learn to paint, and then writing, and then photography have really sharpened my eye. Photography is especially fun as I take pictures and am often blown away by the detail revealed when I see the picture on the computer screen. And then being able to biggify -- what joy!

I did a little google search for cicadas -- Australia has some amazingly beautiful ones.

Miss_Yves said...

Although your photos are beautiful, I can't help thinking to a monster when I look at the fifth picture!

Merisi said...

This is a particularly beautiful specimen!

I experienced two of the so-called "17 year" cicada invasions in DC. Lots of watching them in different stages. There were literally tens of thousands of them crawling and flying around under the trees.

Folkways Note Book said...

Vicki -- fascinating piece of nature's artwork -- barbara

Reader Wil said...

Beautiful creatures, Vicki! But I don't fancy a whole swarm of them. Fortunately we haven't got them here in my country. In Indonesia we had all kind of nasty insects.

Kath said...

How lucky we are to have you focus us on the beauty around us.

Darla said...

Loved this focus upon the microcosm....!