Monarch Butterfly Portrait made with Butterfly Traces

Canadian artist Steven Spazuk and environmental consultant Danielle Delhaes have launched the Monarch Project, feautring a "self-portrait" of a Monarch butterfly which involves the collaboration of more than a hundred volunteers across the North America.

Using soot on cardboards (unique technique that allows him to use the flame of a candle or the flame of a torch as a pencil), the traces left by thousands of Monarch butterflies were respectfully collected, within their natural winter habitat in Mexico.

The resulting printed traces, or entomograms, were cut into pixels of varying shades of grey and assembled with pins to create a 150 X 215 cm “self-portrait” of this majestic and symbolic lepidoptera.

* MUST WATCH video below to see details.