This Mosquito Was Caught...

When I was a college student during early 1970s, I had a summer job at Bergen County Mosquito Commission in Paramus, NJ. Sometimes I had to collect live mosquitos out in the meadowlands during early evenings and put them in the freezer. I did ten (10) detailed drawings of the mosquitoes selected from the collection by the supervisor for training purpose, and I kept one of them for my portfolio. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled that colored pencil drawing out of the portfolio case and decided that I would use the image for this artwork.
When I did the colored pencil drawing, I had to use a microscope to examine this mosquito in detail and for color reference. I think that I used Spectracolor pencils on heavy vellum. For the background, I took a photo of the stagnant part of a pond in the woods. This part is a perfect breeding place for mosquitos, and little fishes feed on them. The mosquito above is one of the most common species. There are over 1000 species of mosquitos in this world, and I believe that about 60 species exist in New Jersey if I remembered correctly. And only the females bite.

Art and image copyrighted 2008 by &rew Borloz