Dragonfly with Leopard Print

I don’t know if there really is a dragonfly with leopard prints out in nature, but I enjoyed making this whimsical creature for animal-print loving friends. My dragonflies have been popular on the art fair circuit, so I hope to see some flutter off online as well.

I jigged a dragonfly from 26-gauge steel wire. Then I dipped leopard-print tissue paper into encaustic medium (a beeswax and resin mixture) and adhered it to the shape. This dragonfly has a wingspan of 4 3/4 inches and measures 4 inches long. It has a hole at the tail to add additional critters to for a Swarm display, but can also be hung alone.

Encaustics should be cared for as you would for any fine art piece. Encaustic derives from the word ‘burn in’ and is a process of applying molten wax colors to a surface for the creation of images or decoration that began more than 2 millennia ago with Roman Egyptian wax portraits.