One of the things I love about doing this page is how much I learn in the process of doing it. The books I'll read, the stuff I'll learn in trying out new projects, and the things I learn while researching something I want to draw. Today it was spiders. What started as a spider web for Halloween led me to research spiders and webs, to learn more about orb weavers, which are the spiders which weave what we think of as a typical web. When you see a Black Widow drawn on this style web, it's inaccurate. Black Widows do weave webs, but they aren't the spiral webs. They are more unstructured.
Orb weavers aren't venomous. They have very bad eyesight despite having 8 eyes, and they come in so many varieties and colors! You can find photos
here. Some have spikes, some are very hairy. So after I finished my web, I drew a basic body for an orb spinner that can be decorated as you please with colors, spots and spikes. Click the images for larger versions.
They start their webs with by catching a breeze and silk sailing from one side to another on a roughly horizontal plane. Then then anchor that thread. The first one is shown in blue, the anchor in red. Then they do the rest of the radials, reinforcing them and making them all stronger with non-sticky thread. After the radials are laid in, they start the web. So now you know the basics to draw or embroider your own webs.
