About Marbled White – a painting of willow pattern jug with late summer flowers and a butterfly

Cutting flowers that I have grown from seed in my garden is such a satisfying thing to do. And when a butterfly, in this case, a marbled white (Melanargia galathea), lands on one of the just-picked flowers it’s all the more satisfying. Then I know for sure I’m doing the right things for wildlife visiting our patch.

The flowers I’ve painted standing in my mother’s willow pattern jug are cosmos, rudbeckia, sweet peas, yarrow, teasel, wild carrot seed heads, a poppy seed head, and one of the very last ox-eye daisies of the season.

Marbled white butterflies thrive in the grassy meadow opposite our home and can be see in abundance fron about July onwards. With their wings open they have a kind of chequerboard pattern, but this butterfly, I think is even more beautiful when it has its wings folded – and this is what I have painted.