Wee Beasties

The recent video of a velvet worm may have given you the willies, but you’ll love the tiny whimsical paintings of Nathan Mazur!

While browsing through an art supply store, local cartoonist and animator, Nathan Mazur, came upon some tiny canvases about the size of a Zippo lighter. Though meant as a novelty item, he purchased a few and used them to paint cartoony, life-sized pictures of bugs.

Wee Beasties is an exhibit of 50 miniature paintings (2” by 2.75”) of insects, worms, and other creepy crawlies. They depict everything from the common cockroach, to the cryptic water bear, all in the artist’s seemingly innocent, saccharine-colored, cartoon style.

The velvet worm is on the left. To the right is (you guessed it) a lightning bug. The exhibit in Pittsburgh runs through April 5th. Most of the miniatures are sold, but you can see them all in Mazur’s online gallery. Link -thanks, Nathan!