More Bees – Breaking Out The Watercolour Paper

Hi there, how are you?

I had drawn quite a few bees in my sketch book recently(you can see them here) so I decided to break out the scary paper again and see if I could do something that looked a little more finished.

I keep saying I’m going to use watercolour paper more often but I don’t, how will I learn to use it if I don’t use it?

So here is a nicely painted bumble bee, on watercolour paper, It’s not perfect but I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.

Ok so that was the good, now gird yourself for scary bee. I wanted to paint one of those lovely splodgy painterly bees that you see around the internet, after putting down the colours all I had was a splodge!

Three little watercolour bee studies.

I was going to throw it away in disgust and then thought “eh, if it’s going in the bin any way I can play with it some more”. I did the thing where you take a damp brush and pick the colour off to highlight the legs and eyes. It’s not beautiful but it was effective and it does look like a bee so I decided not to throw it out after all.
The other two bees were me getting in some valuable practice, as we can see I need it.

My favourite quote this week was from a book by Carl Purcell – Painting with your artist’s brain.
“Use plenty of water and paint, the purpose of painting is not paint conservation.” I think that applies to paper too.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

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The Sketching Of The Bumble Bees

Hi there, how are you?

A quick warning for the people who don’t like insects or bees, this post is full of them so maybe not the best place to be if you have a fear of them.

These last few weeks I have been practicing drawing bees. I’ve been looking at pictures of bees, taking photos and even small videos of bees to try to work out how they fit together.

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These are all bumble bees but not all bumble bees are the same, some are black and yellow with white rears, some have orange rears, even in my own garden there are several different types. They’re really fascinating to watch.

Drawing bees in lots of different positions and sketching out the wings to remember how they fit together.

I hadn’t realised for instance quite how long their legs are compared to their bodies. The veins on the wings have a specific pattern and the two wings on each side hook together when they fly. (I’ve been looking stuff up)

Leaving myself small illegible notes to remember what colours I was using.

I also need to work on the colours I have in my box. I have a hard time with yellows, lemon yellow is on the green side, and yellow ochre is too dull. I also have a New Gamboge but it has a strange red tone to it which sort of works for the orange but I just haven’t found a yellow I’m completely happy with.

It’s fun to watch them flitting around the garden pollinating the plants and it has really given me a better understanding of them. Apparently the numbers of bees is dwindling so we have to look after them. The world will be a much hungrier and less colourful place without the bees.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x