This topic had me going through the cupboards looking for Albert, the dead cicada, the dead dragonfly and other entomological oddities we've collected over the years. I found him in a shoebox full of junk.

Cicadas are cute appealing creatures, with their froggy faces and musical habits. They always remind me of something out of Hayao Miyazaki's extraordinary manga saga, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (yeah, I know there's also a film, but it's one of the few Miyazaki's I haven't yet seen).

A lot of Summers up along the Murray, J and L collect bucketfuls of cicada skins off the sides of trees. The hollow skins are fascinating things (Jill's older sister is irrationally terrified of them) - if I'd had one I would've drawn that as well. Albert's different though - he's actually a whole dead cicada, perfect and green - I don't know how he died. Cicadas live most of their lives underground, though they're far more familiar in their noisy form, after they've emerged, shed their skins and flown off.

When we first moved in to our current house a couple of newly hatched cicadas turned up, sitting around until they felt motivated to move on. Most were green, but one was a bright orange and black (I'm sorry I didn't draw it), and I ended up taking it into the bush and getting it to fly off, as it seemed to really be losing the plot.

I had planned to colour this black and white drawing in Photoshop, but with a morning that began with a broken zipper and burst radiator hose (on the car), and continued with some guys turning up to look for climbing galaxids in our creek, it was not to be :). In colour, the lines of the transparent wings would be green trimmed with yellow, the body a darker green, and gold trim on various edges. On a live cicada the legs wouldn't be folded up either.

Labels: Illustration Friday, Sketchbook