Lilypads as seen by a Dragonfly
Lilypads as seen by a Dragonfly
Details
Year: 2026
Medium: Watercolor on panel
Size: 18 × 24 in
Status: Framed
Price: $1,800.00 USD*
Note
Dragonflies see through compound eyes containing up to 30,000 facets, each capturing a single point of color. Their 15 to 33 opsin genes give them a spectral range from UV to red, far beyond human vision. The ventral eye, which looks downward at the pond, is tuned to longer wavelengths: greens, yellows, oranges. This painting renders the pond from above in that ventral palette, warm, saturated, and abstracted into loose color fields that approximate the low spatial resolution of compound vision. The violet and teal in the water channels reference the shorter-wavelength sensitivity of the dorsal eye, which in life would be looking skyward, not down. Combining both regions into a single downward view is an artistic compression.
Other Paintings in the Series
My Promise
10% of proceeds from every purchase are donated to the World Wildlife Fund to support the protection of endangered species. Thank you for supporting my work and the ecosystems that inspire it.
*If you love this work but the price is out of reach, please feel free to contact me.