RUNNING OUT OF TIME - FROM FIRST THOUGHTS TO FINISHED PAINTING

This is going to be a new series for me.  Finding (and bringing home) the honeycomb from a nature walk last month, I've thought about bees.  How they are floundering with colony collapse and what that might mean to us humans for our food sources in the future.  We need bees, we need all pollinators.  So...thinking about that and using what I have, I am going to be doing a few paintings on the theme of honeybees, honeycombs, and numbers.

I began with the honeycomb itself - one that was abandoned in a fallen tree. 



Then took a lot of reference photos. 

I created a stamp of my own (top right of the photo) and used 2 small stencils I bought in the past (who knew then how these would be used?).

I put down the Quinacridone Gold using the stencils and my own stamp, covering the paper with the drawing of the heart-shaped honeycomb and the honeycomb patterns and numbers.

Then it was time to think about the bees and where to place them.  So I drew three on a piece of tracing paper, intending to trace them onto the honeycomb in a pleasing composition.  However, the bees would not trace over the honeycomb (because of the paint already there?).  

So I just redrew them onto the honeycomb, using the traced paper bees to help in placement.  

Drew and painted the bees on.  Darkened around the honeycomb and reiterated some of the numbers there outside and darkened some of the comb inside around the bees. 


Finished.


This one is called
Running Out of Time






And when you get a good series in mind, it's easy to go on to the next one - which I have begun.