The Pied Shieldbugs

Progress on the pied shieldbugs:
I re-positioned the main shield bug a little further away from the bee to give better balance to the piece. I had spent quite some time watching these tiny bugs and their interaction with other insects. It’s a fascinating micro world of uneasy relationships. Who is predator and who is prey? The shieldbugs did not seem to mind the bees apart from just having to get out of their way. I saw one tumble to the ground, knocked off a leaf by a huge bumble bee landing on a flower and bending the whole flower spike down. It flipped back like a catapult.

The painting of the bugs was fiddly as the largest one is only 1 inch long .

 

I love the way these tiny bugs get to the edge of a leaf and peer over. Bees and beetles do the same, as if contemplating the vista spread out before them. It’s a long drop but having wings must give you an extra sense of confidence.

The two bugs and the bee…. Next the flower and background. Lots of decisions to be made at this stage…

Back to the Bee

My Beautiful Beast this week continues with the Black Bee, Bombus ruderatus, Reading University and Friends of the Earth’s Iconic Bee for the East Midlands. (See my “A Fenland Bee” post)

By my last post here I had roughed out a design .. which I then changed. Such is life.
I decided to change the pose and design to include the odd little pied shield bug which I had found on the same plants at Holme Fen.

 
The foliage rough including the two bugs

I got down to painting the bee last week: (see “The Black Bee Continued”)

 

Almost finished bee.

Sketch and painted bee, roughly combined to check composition. It will be about 10 inches square.

And I did a bit of extra shieldbug research. They are very interesting and attractive little “true” bugs, with a staged lifecycle going through at least 3 instars.

The neat, design-y shield bug instar stages.

This week I will be finishing the bugs and the foliage. There is another bee to come as well. A new drawing of a special Bombus hypnorum.

A Blog Break for Easter

Happy Easter to you all.
Sue and I are having a couple of weeks off. I have some commercial work to do but will be back on the 28th April.
And, as spring really gets going, there is so much gardening and belated spring cleaning to do. Hopefully the odd Easter Egg will arrive too!

Meanwhile an Easter chick! A little moorhen sketch from a few years ago. Just a ball of fluff with big feet. Some things may be different in Florida but the moorhens are just about the same.

He's behind you!!........

The reduction print process is always a challenge, but also interesting because you have to make up your mind one way or another.  Once an area has been cut away you can't replace it.

I was tempted to darken all of the Lapwings in the picture but finally decided to cut out the two smaller birds and keep them a lighter green tone so they recede into the background.

The Lapwing in the front seems as if they are just about to pounce on the unsuspecting fox who is preoccupied with the other birds..........

 

 

 

The prints were all done by hand which gives the final piece a softness that would be difficult to achieve if using a press, however I think it will be interesting to see the difference so will try it and show you next time.......
 

Foxes and Lapwings

As usual, things haven't turned out quite as I expected when I started thinking about my blog post for foxes. For some reason, I got drawn to the thought of how foxes and birds interact especially at this time of year when there are eggs to be found on the ground  as an easy meal for a hungry fox.  You may have seen the extraordinary display Lapwings [Vanellus vanellus]  put on to protect their nests and chicks if danger is close at hand.  We used to call them Peewits because of their call, and they are part of the Plover family.

They will try and distract the predator through noise and even attack  or try to lure them off by feigning a broken wing. I remember seeing that as a child but rarely get to see such behaviour these days although their numbers do seem to be increasing, which wouldn't be difficult as we  hardly saw any for several years.

I started off with an idea in mind of a fox being mobbed by Lapwings and drew a sketch onto my lino.

 

1st stage - Initial cutting of block to retain the white areas

 

 

2nd Stage -First hand print to check image

 

 

 

Next stage in reduction process, as Val has already mentioned, so aptly named suicide method as there's no going back!.....

 

 

2nd colour print, all done by hand using a baron so the image is quite light and textured but I like that.  Using a press produces a different kind of image, more uniform and stronger in tone which is useful but maybe not always what is required.

 

The next stage is to check whether further cutting is needed to let the light green tone show more and then I can move on to printing the final tone, black.  All very anxiety inducing but also wonderful because you just never know how it's going to turn out!

Foxes again......

With Spring in the air, my thoughts have turned to the possibility of seeing young fox cubs. It's been a warm [if very wet!] winter so I suspect the cubs are, by now, thinking about coming out for their first look at the world. They're born blind and deaf so their mother has a lot of caring to do in the first few weeks of their lives but when they're about a month old they are ready to take in their surroundings and they have to learn fast because a few short weeks later they will be weaned....

   

    Sketch of young cubs relaxing

 

Once their tails are fully grown they will be longer than half their body length and they [like most young of any species] enjoy playing with their siblings and learning lessons which will help keep them alive......



    Quick pencil study of cubs playing   


They are very agile throughout their lives and when fully grown are capable of jumping over high fences and even swimming through rivers if the need arises so are well adapted to their hunting life.

 

Working out ideas for painting of cubs playing in Holme Fen

 

Capturing the colours of the Red Fox [Vulpes vulpes] is not always easy as they very quite a lot, but the distinctive marking and bushy tail is usually recognised by most people.

 

Sketchbook page - watercolour study for fur and eye colour.....

 

 

 

Another study in watercolour

 

I shall be looking to put these ideas into a painting or series of paintings as well as another print....there is so much to learn about these fascinating creatures and I really hope that you get a chance to see them for yourself.......just follow the unmistakeable scent!

A Little more Bee Progress

It’s a good time to draw this bee as the White Dead Nettle is just coming into full flower.There are many patches in and around my hedge so I brought two flower stalks in to work from.

 
The White Dead Nettle along with my chestnut twigs, my bee models one of which is  B ruderatus very kindly given to me by my main bee ID helper Alan Phillips and the best book I have found so far on solitary bees. “Bees of Surrey” by David Baldock.

I’m still thinking about how to portray this bee so it’s more rough composition sketches and some more detailed bee drawings

 
Bee and the Dead nettle flower

I might even add a bit of colour on the main flower stem this time.

 
B ruderatus colour notes
And I might add some pollen to the pollen basket to contrast with the black bee.

Things that are black are very seldom seen as black so I have to decide on the colours. There is sometimes a deep red/brown to the black bee’s coat. The shiny exoskeleton will reflect blue sky where the hairs are sparse or rubbed away. The wings will shimmer with reflected light but do have a slightly dingy yellow/brown colour…like old discoloured Sellotape.
There is a European relation to this bee Bombus argillaceus who has spectacularly dark brown wings.. very beautiful. It does not live in the UK..yet. Things do change.

Bee Habitat

When I am going to draw a particular bee it’s important to me that I understand its habitat. I am rather hoping I might find a B ruderatus somewhere on the Fenland and the habitat in parts of Holme Fen is just perfect.

Holme Fen Habitat Sketches
The  dyke banks near the info boards are planted with White Dead Nettle, Red Dead Nettle and Mallow, favourite forage for this bee.

The different shapes of the plants are interesting and I am thinking about the possibility of a pencil background to the bee, but with more foliage than I would normally use.
Curiously there are some Highland cattle grazing on the grasslands. They are used to help manage the pasture.

A gouache sketch looking over the fen past the sleeping cattle to a distant farm. Looking this way there is no sense of the black peaty soil because these fields  have been deliberately laid down to grass.