Unique artistry: Julian Jumalon and the Butterflies

Topic Sentence: Julian Jumalon’s love for butterflies and the arts prompted him to innovate his signature artworks called “lepido mosaics”, a mosaic made of damaged wings of butterflies and moths.

I.                    Julian Jumalon and the butterflies

A.      Butterflies as his first love

a.       When he was 8 years old he saw and was amazed as a bunch of colorful winged butterflies in Zamboanga migrating to the other side of the place.

b.      When he was a 2^nd year high school student at Abellana National School, he found a book called “The Limber Lost Girl”- a love story of a rich man who fell in love with an underprivileged girl who cultures and sells butterflies to earn money. This inspired him to continue collecting more and more butterflies of different species.

B.      Butterfly then became his lifetime hobby

a.       He engages trading of his butterflies to Europe to get new species of butterflies.

b.      Did not have a single biology subject when he studied in college yet he found 20 unique species of butterfly.

II.                  Artist

A.      He studied fine arts in University of the Philippines Manila under the tutelage of famous Filipino artists Fernando Amorsolo, Fabian de la Rosa, Guillermo Tolentino.

a.       Due to these artists his artistic style in painting was in the realistic approach.

b.      His artworks were inspired by our culture, history, nature and folklore. Examples are the Sa Kabukiran, Akoy Pobreng Alindahaw.

B.      Painting

a.       He was at first an oil painter.

b.      Since materials for oil painting was very expensive he switched to watercolor painting

c.       During Christmas, as his kids were playing with the damaged butterfly wings in creating Christmas cards, he found out that he can make a never seen before mosaic by using colorful wings of the butterflies—this then became his signature artwork.

C.      Signature Artwork

a.       His signature artworks are his “Lepido Mosaics”-mosaics made from damaged wings of moths and butterflies.

b.      Unlike other butterfly mosaics like in Taiwan which are composed of big chunks of butterfly wings combined together, Jumalon’s mosaics were mainly made with very tiny cuts (about .5 cm each) of butterfly wings. Thus, his artworks are product of great patience, where 1 artwork is finished at least four months.

c.       This unique technique made his artworks famous during his time due to its beauty and level of difficulty.