Monarchs for Mom - Original Artwork - Watercolor

This was my very first watercolor, painted for a class I was taking. My mother and I both loved monarchs from living among them in Morelia Mexico, where they returned every year for winter on the week of Dias Los Muertos. The indigenous people believe the monarchs carry the souls of their relatives back for the day and so nature played a role in creating this annual ritual that is still practiced all these centuries later. When the migrations to two specific places in Mexico were discovered,  mom and I went back together to see Del Rosario Monarch Sanctuary. We arrived as the "river of butterflies" began to wake and migrate back north. I have painted about these butterflies from the very start. This work belongs to my mother. It was a gift for her 60th Birthdayl