One thing I try to do in my painting studio is to mix "unnamable colors," colors that can't be described as mere red or bright red. Many biological colors are unnamable. For example, human skin has so many colors other than just the "skin color:" bluish light-brown, pinkish dark-brown, orangish medium-brown, etc. So for my painting I decided to get colors from larva. I sent an email to Marta to ask whether she had some actual colored specimens that I could see, but unfortunately larva lose colors when they are preserved. So I ended up color-printing photos from Google search.

With the photos on my studio wall, I begun mixing the "larvae colors" from the colors I already had. Mixing colors is not an easy process, especially when it gets to making unnamable colors. For example,  to make the following color I had to mix: purple, primary yellow, titanium white, raw umber, dark gray, quinacridone magenta, dioxazine purple, and little bits of colors that I don't remember. After 7 hours of struggle with the larva photo, I ended up with 20 larva colors.

 

With these colors I made my painting.

It's an interesting idea that by simply mimicking the colors of larva one can recreate the physical properties of larva in an entirely different form. My next goal in painting is to use these larva colors to create a sensual feeling of "finger-poking the larval abdomen."