Lavender Bees

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind."

If you are inclined to have a go at painting then I do urge you to . Not necessarily because you will will create a masterpiece ( although , of course you may well do ) but the very process of painting encourages you to look and really see, It makes the world so much more exciting and the process of using your hands and your brain in an all engrossing task is a real joy. You always remember a view you've painted and you see it so much better than just glancing at it as you stroll past.

Today I thought I would share with you my lavender bee painting , I have written about painting bees before but I am putting these two in context and adding some very loose lavender , so I will concentrate more on the flowers than the bees. 

So to begin I loosely sketch out the bees and the lavender

 

 

Then get out your a small spray bottle and spray the surface of the paper randomly.

 

 

Now you can drop in the colours of lavender, and if you look, there are blues, purples, and pinks. Just be vague at this point and let the paint merge and drift around the paper.

 

 

You can see here how the paint takes on the shape created by the spray bottle, just drop the paint into the water on the paper.

 

 

Keep going and bee bold with faint colour, does that make sense ? Just let it run and merge , I feel it is like the scent of the lavender filling the paper. Once you are happy stop and let it dry

 

 

You can see by this photo how much lighter the paint is when it is dry

 

 

Next I started on the bees, the colour here is much stronger, yellows and oranges for those stripes, paynes grey, blues and purples for the other.

 

 

Once most of the bee is in place, I go back to the lavender, adding some stronger colour , darker purple and cerulean blue, defining some of the lavender flowers, but letting a lot of the colour blend, lots of wet in wet.

 

 

I have added a few splatters and splashes around too.

 

 

Repeat the process on the other flower, or if you are just starting out maybe start with one bee and one lavender

 

 

So painting the lavender is a process of layering , and getting more detail with each layer, the painting is nearly done, but I want to define some more edges , and add some darker tones.

 

 

You can fiddle with it as much as you want to. I like to leave mine as loose as I dare but it is a personal decision, add your finishing touches and let the watercolour work it's magic

 

Happy Painting x