With their natural colours, each butterfly wing is a unique painting in itself. But how to use the material to create a new painting is a different story. The job requires a lot of time and effort.
First, Nguyet Anh must find butterflies with the proper colours before embalming and drying them. She then makes a pencil draft of the painting, calculates how many butterfly wings will be needed as well as which colour and size they should be, and finally glues the wings together.
The world of butterflies is diverse, each species has its own growth characteristics, habitat, and colour. Even a wing has different shades of a colour from its upper to lower parts. This feature provides craftsmen with a wide range of selection of colours for the making of their paintings.
In her paintings, the small wooden houses are made from wings of brown butterflies, roof tiles dotted with moss are coloured by green swallowtail butterflies, yellow leaves in autumn are featured by monarch butterflies, and the colour of the sky is illustrated with gossamer-winged butterflies.
Nguyet Anh’s butterfly wing paintings can create attractive visual impacts on viewers as each piece is a feast of colours. Colours on her pictures remain intact even 10 years after their making.
Depending on the concept of the painting, Anh decides to choose the colour of one butterfly or various butterflies.
A painting featuring a butterfly will show the magnificent colours of an individual butterfly in nature, which can change magically from bright to dark shades.
Meanwhile, in a painting made from a dozen or even thousands of wings, the artist blends colours of similar or contrasting tints together.
“Nature creates colourful butterflies, which are seen through Anh’s eyes as a special material for making arts,” said Nguyen Hoang Quan, a visitor to Anh’s gallery.
He praised Anh for lifting the value of butterfly wings and giving a new breath of life for them in her artworks.
Anh was awarded the title of artisan in 2013. Her pictures have been displayed and sold in Vietnam and foreign countries including the US and Japan.
Selected paintings made from butterfly wings by artisan Vu Thi Nguyet Anh (Photo: tranhbuomanhkim.vn):
