02 | February | 2011 | The Dragonfly Woman

: Aquatics montage 1 (This is the prize if you choose option #1)

As promised, it’s time to have a contest! Up for grabs: an insect coffee mug hand drawn by The Dragonfly Woman. I’ll even give the winner a choice! 1) You can have the aquatic insect mug I featured on my blog a while back (pictured at left), which depicts a stonefly nymph, dragonfly nymph, crawling water beetle, water boatman, predaceous diving beetle, mosquito pupa, blackfly larva, mayfly adult, caddisfly larva (out of its case), and a hellgrammite. Or 2) if aquatic insects aren’t your cup o’ tea, I’ll make you a custom mug! You can choose up to 3 insects and I’ll create an entirely new mug just for you. My only restriction: no dragonflies! I know, I know. It’s ironic The Dragonfly Woman won’t do dragonflies, but the paint pens I use aren’t fine tipped enough to allow me to put in all those teeny tiny little wing veins – and if I’m honest with myself I’ll admit that I don’t have the patience to put them all in anyway. If you can’t live without an odonate, I can do a damselfly or any immature odonate easily enough. And whether you go with option 1 or 2, the mug will be white with a black design because that’s how I roll. I’ve posted a few photos of other mugs I’ve done to give you a more complete idea of my style and how a mug with only a single insect on it might look.

Hellgrammite mug

The mugs I make are microwave safe and dishwasher resistant. However, due to the fact that the paint is on top of the glaze, you can extend the life of your mug by hand washing it as needed. Scouring the outside repeatedly will wear the paint out, so don’t go scrubbing the outside with steel wool or anything. Of course, if you’re me and you wash your tea mug at work, oh, every 6 months or so (i.e. only when you can no longer see any white on the inside), then by all means stick the mug in the dishwasher. It can definitely withstand the 20 washes it will get before you accidentally drop it on your tile floor and it ends up in 100 pieces… :)

Aquatics montage 2

So, just how does one go about winning a mug? There are 3 ways to enter and you can enter up to three times if you wish:

Method 1) Leave a comment below with the name of your favorite insect. If you’re not an entomologist, common names or even the name of a group of insects (e.g. dragonflies) will do!

Method 2) Follow me on Twitter (I’m @dragonflywoman2), then leave a comment below to let me know you are now a follower. (I kinda sound like a cult leader phrasing it like that…) Just so you know what you’re getting yourself into by following me, I use Twitter to share news about insects, aquatic biology (including some marine), and other interesting bits of biology. News about bats creeps in from time to time too because I love bats and I can’t help myself. I tweet about 15 times a day.

Method 3) “Like” my new Dragonfly Woman page on Facebook, then leave a comment below to let me know you’ve done so. I created the page so that I could post notices about new blog posts, the occasional interesting news tidbit, and photos related to my blog separately from my regular Facebook account. I would also love for other people to post insect photos and interesting news there! I promise I will resist the urge to bombard you with status updates and other things that will clog your Facebook news feed.

I’ll accept entries for one week, then I’ll write all the entries on slips of paper and have my husband draw one. I’ll announce the winner here and contact him/her by e-mail to make arrangements for shipping the mug. Easy, right? Just make sure you send me a valid e-mail address or I won’t be able to notify you if you win!

Good luck!

_______________