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My family is obsessed with monarchs butterflies. Every summer, we collect monarch eggs and raise them to adulthood, at which point we release them. We have a butterfly garden, where we can observe the monarchs and other butterflies in their natural habitat. My husband even wrote a book in which a monarch plays an important role.

This year, though, we've been asking ourselves, where are the monarchs? We haven't seen any monarchs, or many butterflies at all, in our butterfly garden. My husband and son went camping this weekend, and didn't see any butterflies there, either. So far this summer we've found a grand total of ONE monarch larva (caterpillar), which was almost ready to pupate when we brought it in to finish growing to adulthood. We've seen no monarch eggs. What's going on?

It's true that we usually see the largest number of monarchs here (Maryland) in August and September, but we usually can find some throughout the summer. This year, though, there's almost none to be found.

Apparently, we aren't the only ones asking the question. Monarch Watch recently posted an article on their blog about the very subject:

Monarch Watch: Where are the monarchs??

While the low numbers of monarchs isn't good, the article points out that there is some hope: because the butterfly population is low, parasites and predators that depend on the butterflies may dying or not reproducing, which will give the next generation of monarchs a better chance. Here's hoping!

Monarch photo copyright 2005 Sheila Ruth. All rights reserved.

Continuing on with creating an illustration of Table 52 in Chicago...

I taped this photo onto my lightbox and did a first trace, establishing the main lines of the building. I straightened up the distortion in the photo (its slight, but its there... the verticals in photos are rarely all truly vertical.)

I took out all the "uglies" that I mentioned in the last post.

I moved the middle tree to the right just a bit so the pretty window would show better. This also had the added benefit of hiding a bit of the "warming hut".
Then I did a really bold thing and added a tree that isn't even there on the right side!
Before I did that I stared at that side of the building and pondered how on earth to show the fire escape and fiddly bits of pipes and all, then also how to show that whole basically dead area.

"Why don't you just crop the whole piece and take that side off altogether?" you ask. Good question. Two things: 1. It needs to be there to balance out the rest of the piece and 2. because I'm doing this for a magazine and there is a size specification, I have to include exactly what I have in the picture to make the size work.
The added tree is in keeping with the two that are already there, and I honestly don't think anyone's going to have an issue with it. This is a case where that "artistic license" we all carry around comes in handy. You just have to know when and how to use it.

So now that I have the composition basically worked out to my satisfaction, I do another trace, tightening things up a bit, cleaning up the linework and adding a few more details.


I forgot to say before that I also took out the buildings in the background. Sometimes I leave them in, it depends. If a building is flanked by others, up close, or if the surrounding buildings help establish where this one "lives", or for some other good reason, I will leave them in, and maybe fade them out some.
In this case, the surrounding architecture does nothing to enhance this one, and also, this one is kind of 'stand alone' anyway, so I decided it didn't need any company on the page.

Also, the trees will be very "light" in feeling. I don't want them to overwhelm the picture. I will be taking out the snow in the photo as well, and putting Spring leaves on the trees (and taking out the Christmas lights they currently have wrapped around them). So the overall feel of the piece will be much different than the photo.


Next I put that last sketch on the light box and transfer the drawing to my final paper.
I'm using Lanaquarelle watercolor paper. I darkened the drawing up in Photoshop to show here. In reality its much much lighter, and so is the paper. But it does have a warmish cast to it, which will work nicely with the whole feel of the piece.

The next thing to do is choose a palette and start painting!

All images and content herein are © Paula Pertile and may not be used or reproduced without permission.