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.

A Fenland Bee: The Large Garden Bumble Bee, Bombus ruderatus

My beast this week is a bee I have been wanting to paint for a long time. As part of this blog, Sue and I are exploring our local region, the Fenlands and low lands of the East Midlands of England. Its fauna and flora can be quite specific and this bee is found most commonly in our sort of area.
In 2013 the University of Reading and Friends of the Earth published a list of Iconic bees of the UK.Their aim as follows:

“A project to put together a list of local ‘Iconic Bees’ - one for each region (or in some cases county) of the UK.This will be a species which has a story to tell – be it negative or positive. Once completed it will be a useful tool for local campaigners as it will give the general public a bee species to support locally and could also go a long way to raising awareness of bee diversity in the UK.

My photo of the beautiful black Bombus ruderatus in my fathers garden in 2011

For our area and luckily for me it is the beautiful Bombus ruderatus. The Large Garden Bumble Bee. This is the description from the PDF issued by the Friends of the Earth where you can read about all the bees which have been allocated to each region.

“This is Britain’s largest bumblebee with a long face and extremely long tongue. It strongly resembles the more widespread Small Garden Bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) with a yellow band either end of its thorax, a single yellow band at the top of the abdomen (often broken or faint) and a white tail, however its hair is shorter and ‘neater’ and the yellow bands tend to be duller and more mustard in colour. Also, unlike the Small Garden Bumblebee, it has a completely black form.

B. ruderatus’ preferred habitat is flower-rich meadows of river valley systems,
fenlands and other wetlands. This is due to the presence in these areas of White
Dead-nettle, Comfrey, Marsh Woundwort and Yellow Iris on which it likes to forage.
It also has a strong liking for Clover and other leguminous plants and so is also
found on farmland that contains margins and ditches rich in these species”

It’s a difficult bee to identify unless you find the all black form which I saw a few years ago in my fathers garden. Luckily I had good enough photos to make a pretty confident ID and of course to work from, for a painting.

So  sketches and ideas first from my model which is the banded form but will show me that long face.

 

This striped version of the bee varies tremendously in its colouration and the width of the bands and it is very like B hortorum. I will be drawing the all black version, officially called Bombus rudertus v.harrisellus

 

 A4 sketchbook work and notes

 
Thinking about seeing bees in the white dead nettles near Holme Fen on Sunday. It’s the perfect habitat for this bee.

A small colour sketch:  watercolour  5 x 4 inches

Halcyon days.........

The kingfisher has a wonderful place in Greek mythology, with the story of Alcyone [Halcyon],  who married Ceyx and was very happy until, of course, tragedy overtook them.

 It's a story of love and devotion with Alcyone commiting suicide by throwing herself into the sea  after hearing of the death of her husband who drowned on a sea voyage.

 Fortunately the gods took pity on them and turned them both into kingfishers but the actual term 'halcyon days' refers to the 7 days before and the 7 days after the winter solstice when Alcyone is reputed to have laid her eggs.  It helps to have a father [Aeolus]who is god of the winds and can calm the winds and sea so you have a bit of peace and quiet whilst incubating your eggs and that's exactly what he did.

I've always wondered where the term came from, and shall now use it more appropriately as a time of peace and tranquillity when all around is blowing up a storm!

 

First stage lino cut of Kingfisher

 

I decided to place my kingfisher among the bulrushes at Easton Walled Gardens, with the lovely stone bridge in the background

 

 

Lino cut and watercolour

 

It's interesting how different papers produce such a different effect even though you're using the same inks and block, so I tried a hand print with some Japanese  Hosho paper and rather liked the softer effect.  It is much more absorbent and soaks up the watercolour like a sponge.

 

 

lino cut  and watercolour on Hosho paper

 

I've enjoyed experimenting with this image and feel that there is a lot more potential in it which I'll be working on.  In the meantime there is a lot more to think about with regard to our Great Fen project, and Val and I have some interesting ideas ........  

 

March: In like an adder’s head..out like a peacock’s tail

I wonder if this will be the case this year… this lovely old weather proverb can go both ways. Its been a day of sun and hail.
But I am enjoying my adders. I continued with a few more small trials while working on the larger piece. Small prints are useful for learning  about cutting and for colour trials but after the end of March things will have to get bigger and better!

Small adder prints.

 

Blue adder. 2 x 11 inches

Brown adder. 2 x 11 inches

 The large adder print …

The block and some of the mess the rest is scattered on the floor and around the house.

2 colours..9.5 x12 inches

3 colours… A proof print

One more to go ….

Print Progress

While I am working on the large adder print I decided to make smaller one with an offcut of the vinyl. I wanted to try some colours and see what combining it with an old  leaf lino cut which was about the same size, would look like.

A new small adder

The old leaf print and the small adder. I am planning a two colour reduction for the snake.

A combination of the two plates.. other colours and another plate to come.

Back to the adders

Its coming up to three months of Beautiful Beasts and Sue and I have given oursleves to the end of the month to try to get a few things finished as well as the ongoing sketching and developing of ideas. So it’s back to the adders and a finished lino cut.

I am working larger now and this one will be approx 11.75 x9.5 inches. It needed some more working out and so I started with a rough and a tonal value sketch

Re draw from first rough.

 
Tonal sketches for the adder lino.

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Two colour ideas for 3 col reduction. It will probably be very different in the end, but it’s a start.

…and starting to cut the block

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