Waggle Dance

Today I wanted to try something different. It will come as no surprise to many of you that I have become very interested in bees. I know how important they are and they are a joy to paint. I have learnt a lot along the way but I am certainly no expert, but today I wanted to paint the bees at home, and the prettiest homes are those of honey bees ( I think) .

So step 1 was to draw the honey comb and the bees

I wanted to show them 'dancing' along and knew if I did any more than 3 I would get bored and lose focus.

In this hot weather the paint is drying very quickly , so I am enjoying getting things done quickly, but by mid afternoon it is almost too hot to paint.So I am painting even more quickly than usual .

Step 2 I started with the bees, 

I masked out some white on the wings and then started with the detail on the eyes.

Step 3  I want them to shine

The backs of honey bees are smooth ( unlike bumbles) and I want to get that shine on their bottoms. The best way to do this is to leave the white paper showing, and try not to worry to much about precise detail

Step 4 the honey

So now on this gloriously hot sunny summers day I can let my paper ooze with golden honey. I have never painted so much yellow and gold  on one piece and the sunshine all but radiates from it.

I continued to play around with golds and yellows in the honeycomb, then to concentrate more on each little bee.

Once most of the painting was done I splashed more paint around the edges and flicked some gold ink and more yellow spots around, I like the edges of my work to fade off the page, and exploit the watery-ness of watercolour.