The Deathwatch Beetle

The set-up: The deathwatch beetle is a woodboring insect. To attract mates, they create a tapping or ticking sound that can be heard in old buildings on quiet summer nights. They are therefore associated with quiet, sleepless nights and are named for the vigil kept beside the dying or dead, and by extension the superstitious have seen the death watch as an omen of impending death.
I wanted to take that idea and fold it into the Victorian artistic penchant for all things fairy-related. Often moths and insects were anthropomorphized and given cherubic faces in fairy-themed artworks.

I'm laying in a lot of green and yellows. I spent a good deal of time working on the green curtain, but it's not yet quite there.

The Deathwatch Beetle

I've settled on this composition. There is a little cherubic deathwatch beetle overseeing an elderly man. The nurse introduces the scene.

Mayfly

Here is my finished painting, Mayfly. You can see more pictures of it Here at My Good Babushka!