Tessa Farmer

  Tessa Farmer is an extremely talented British artist famous for making fairies out of roots and insect carcasses. Often depicting the nastier and more mischievous side of fairies, Tessa's miniature skeletal figures are often seen tearing apart other insects, as seen in this series of details from her piece, Swarm.Tessa spoke to Antennae about her work and what goes into making her incredibly detailed creations:

"I started making them with small twigs stuck together with a glue-gun, and using leaf-skeletons as wings, then to make them smaller I used the veins of the leaf skeletons as bones. Then I came across roots which really are perfect material as they can be so fine, but still strong and quite flexible. I build up the skeletons by sticking pieces of roots together with superglue. The skulls are made from tiny clumps of earth drenched in superglue, carved into a cranium shape, then the facial bones are added. They don't have teeth, kneecaps or all the finger/ toe bones, but this leaves room for improvement which is always a good thing! I hope to make them smaller, to try making them under a microscope... I'm not sure I would want them to become invisible to the naked eye though… there is that element of magic when the viewer sees them and takes a while to notice what they really are, if this happens at all—sometimes people don't see them, which I think is quite nice, as it reflects the fact that some people can see fairies, and others can't!"

[via DesignYouTrust]