Sunday, April 6, 2014

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.

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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

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Bee and the Dead nettle flower

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

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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.

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