bee painting – Page 5 – Pencil and Leaf

A Bee on a Broomstick, the Opportunist Snail Shell Bees.

By Val Littlewood April 13, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

Yes, you knew all along that yesterday’s snail shells were not just random sketches but really bee related..didn’t you? I first came across these astonishing little bees when reading “Animal Architecture” by Karl Von Frisch.

In his fascinating book he describes how the bee will search for a suitable empty snail shell, provision it with bee bread, lay her egg, then, leaving enough space for the growing bee, seal it with a partition of chewed up leaves, (there are sometimes more than one cell in each shell).

She then fills the remaining whorls with a fortifying layer of tiny stones finishing off with a final partition and some moss. She then carefully covers the shell with a tent of twigs and grass and chewed up leaves for extra camouflage.

This photo from “Bees of the World” by Christopher O’Toole and Anthony Raw, shows an Osmia bee finishing off her nest with a sliver of reinforcing snail shell.

There are some very nice accounts of people observing these industrious little bees, both past and present. Here is an extract from Frisch’s book accompanied by a really nice drawing which illustrates his observation.

“Once when I was out hunting insects, I made a swipe at an oddly flying, bizarre-looking creature. To my surprise all I found nothing in my net apart from a mason bee and a dry stalk. Having read about the tent building habits of of these bees I was intrigued. I released the bee and settled down to watch. After a while I was rewarded by seeing her return, riding on another piece of stalk like a witch on a broomstick.The heavy load slowed her down to such an extent that I just managed to keep her in sight as I ran and she herself guided me to her nest.

Another time I watched the same species nest building on a cow track in a mountain pasture. Here the stalks and twigs were all arranged toward the toe end of the cows footprints, a beautiful adaptation to local conditions. The speed of the building was amazing. One of the bees I watched was just making a partition for which she had collected bits of leaves from a nearby strawberry patch. She kept flying back and forth in a straight line between the plants and the nest” ‘

Jean Henri Fabre experimented with giving bees a choice of shell or hollow reed for nesting and concluded that they would only take the shell if the reed was not available possibly because it is more difficult to build a nest in a tapering spiral than in a tube of more or less constant dimensions.
The bees has to calculate that the size of the aperture will accommodate her developing offspring!

“Why, when I offer them simultaneously Snail-shells and reeds of a suitable size, do the old frequenters of the shells prefer the reeds, which in all probability have never before been utilized by their race? Most of them scorn the ancestral dwelling and enthusiastically accept my reeds. Some, it is true, take up their quarters in the Snail-shell; but even among these a goodly number refuse my new shells and return to their birth-place, the old Snail-shell, in order to utilize the family property, without much labour, at the cost of a few repairs. Whence, I ask, comes this general preference for the cylinder, never used hitherto? The answer can be only this: of two lodgings at her disposal the Osmia selects the one that provides a comfortable home at a minimum outlay. She economizes her strength when restoring an old nest; she economizes it when replacing the Snail-shell by the reed.”

There are lots of lovely observations about the snail shell bees in his writings..He describes the different Osmia and which shells they seem to prefer. Go to http://www.efabre.net… search, read, and share his delight. Walter Linsenmaier’s “Insects of the World” details how some bees move the shells to hiding places.

“ Taking firm hold of the ground with repeated bites they grasp the shell with their legs and haul it after them. Some apply plant paste to parts of the slippery shell enabling their feet to get a firm grip. A few species bury the shell in sandy soil, others protect it with a cover of interwoven pine needles… It is ever a new experience to observe how objectively and with what careful testing such bees work and how penetratingly thorough is their interest in their productions.”

(It is interesting that his illustration predated that of Frisch’s and is very similar and I would imaging that Turid Holldobler who drew the text illustrations for Frisch based her drawings on Linsenmaier’s.)

Whose Shell is This?
For a current, and wonderfully entertaining view of a snail shell bee investigating a shell go to Nico Vereecken’s short film here. Initially it seems that a bee arrives to find the shell already occupied by another but a bee comes back again and again, goes in and out of the shell and turns it over and over.

Watch for the uneasy encounter between the bee and the jumping spider, who is playing king of the castle, and the passing enormous elegant ant!
Nick has built an incredible photographic bee resource which you can find on Flickr here.
Thanks so much to Alan at Norwegica’s Aculeate Blog for first linking to this film!!

The Painting
There are several UK Osmia bees which use snail shells Osmia bicolor, Osmia aurulenta and the little Osmia spinulosa (10mm) which is the one I chose to paint.
Jeremy Early at “Nature Conservation Imaging” refers to them in his excellent “Downland Bees” page.

They seem to use a variety of shells so I went out snail shell hunting some time ago only to discover that there are not many land snails to be found here. I eventually found one I thought suitable and made some sketches and then built a little set complete with a tiny bee. (apologies to the very sensitive amongst you, but it’s one that was kindly sent to me).

Why did I choose this bee? For the very non scientific reason that it has beautiful blue eyes!

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The Blue Eyed Osmia Spinulosa, considering the possibility of a new home…

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP approx 8” x 8”

BLOG UPDATE .. May 19th 2010.
Great blog post on Osmia bicolour making her nest in a snailshell.. here: at Antje Schulte’s blog “Four Feet and More“
http://fourfeetandmore.blogspot.com/2010/05/osmia-bicolor-bee-that-nests-in-snail.html

Foxy Lady of the Solitary Bee World, the Tawny Mining Bee.

By Val Littlewood April 9, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

This is another bee I painted before for Deborah’s 16 bee set here. It’s the lovely Tawny Mining bee, Andrena fulva who leaves little volcanoes in your lawn after digging out her nest. It is one of my favourites, she is so pretty.
I wrote about it before too, but I am repeating this quote from David Kendall’s site from my previous post, because it is worth repeating and timely.

The female bee makes a small volcano-like mound with the soil excavated from the nest. There may be many nests close together, giving the impression of communal life, but each female is actually working alone. Nesting activity lasts only a short time (perhaps 2-3 weeks), after which the small mounds of earth around each nest entrance soon disappear, with no permanent damage to the lawn.
Take care not to confuse solitary bee nest mounds with the mounds of earth caused by the nesting activity of ant colonies. Solitary bee mounds have a single large entrance hole in the middle, and by watching for a short while on a warm sunny day, you will see the bees coming and going to collect pollen.
If left alone, these bees will often nest in the same area year after year, and provide an annual service by pollinating your early flowering fruit trees and shrubs (apples, pears, currants and gooseberries) and other garden plants – so helping to ensure good crops later in the year.

from his very nice readable site “Insects and other Arthropods” here.

Let’s hear it for the Solitary Bees!!

My hesitant efforts to promote the exhibition, were rewarded recently with an email from an organisation who are having a “bee support” campaign.
They said they were not really interested in what I was doing because it was about solitary bees and their concern was for honey bees.
I was quite dismayed at this remark (understatement!) which smacks rather of the French attitude which Paul from “Solitary Bee” encounters.
Perhaps it came from someone who doesn’t really know much about bees in general (.. she says, trying to be kind), but it did make me more determined to be a champion of these important “other” bees.
I do realise that, to win the place in our hearts and minds that honey bees occupy, solitary bees have quite long way to go, but they have so much going for them and they serve us so very well.
I know there are quite a few of us out there who feel the same.
I feel a ranting blog post and campaign coming on !… and how could you not love a little Tawny Mining bee!!

The Painting
I know what I wanted for this one so not so much dithering.
She is perching on a twig looking down at the nest she has excavated.

These are really neat little bees with shortish hair which stands out from the body .. I think I described them before as rather like little bottle brushes. (think of the tree!).
I was going to make this the title of the blog post (“Bottle Brush of the Bee World”) but didn’t want to be responsible for any harm coming to Tawny Mining bees: you know how stupid some people can be.

I have a reasonable scanner but it does average the colours out and I don’t have time to play around with things too much, but in the original she in much more a two tone foxy redhead, as she should be.

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The Tawny Mining Bee.. Loveable .. YES..!

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP. 8×7”

There Will Be Apples!.. (if you have an Orchard Bee). Osmia rufa again.

By Val Littlewood April 5, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

I knew I was going to repaint this one, so here is this serious little mason bee again.

I have to be completely frank .. she is not the most elegant of bees.

The female bees have rather large heads, which plus the accompanying horns give her a rather pugnacious appearance.
She will use the horns to shape the mud for her nest.
I have written about the Osmia Orchard bees both UK and USA before here, so I am not going to say much more and there is oodles of info on the internet.

Solitary Bee Blog
One delightful and fascinating blog is from Paul at http://solitarybee.com/blog/. Paul lives near Paris and charts his life with his solitary bees and his successes and failures in trying to increase their numbers. He talks about his concerns, his observations and conclusions with affection and humour.
He doesn’t have fancy bee nests, some are as simple as beer cans and rolled paper.
He is a diligent and resourceful carer. I particular liked his use of a black socks to keep out the light and prevent his cocoons from premature emergence (from an early post here).
There are some short films with French bird soundtracks and lots of info about the care of Osmia rufa and cornuta
I am quoting a piece from his intro which is interesting, not only because of his appreciation for and understanding of these lovely bees but for the curious attitude of the French.

“According to the experts, each bee can pollinate up to ten times more flowers than a honey bee but they are in no way aggressive to those in their midst. Over here in France, they are often misunderstood by people looking on; where my ‘colony’ of bees live, the locals here refer to them as lazy bees because they don’t produce honey (and thus appear to be of no exploitable value). For me however they are a source of inspiration. What they achieve in their focused short existence leaves the world in a much better shape – in 2007 our orchards were full of fruit.”

I hope you are getting your message across Paul.

The Painting I changed the painting, made her a little smaller and daintier, and, in tribute to their unsung work in the orchards, she is now flying up towards apple blossom. .. I think this will also be the title of the painting…

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There Will Be Apples.

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP approx 7 x 8”

The Tiny White Faced Bee

By Val Littlewood April 1, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

You would hardly think this was a bee would you?

And no, regarding the date, it’s not a joke! Although if I had had time, a fantasy new bee species would have been excellent. This is the little White Faced bee from the Hylaeus family, Hylaeus hyalinatus and at only around 6 mm it must be one of the smallest bees found in Britain and more wasp like than bee like.
There are several species found in the UK. They are all very similar and tricky to tell apart individually. For information on identification go to BWARS.

This particular one is a male and has some white hairs on the face, which you can’t see on my low res image.
Sometimes they are called masked bees, or yellow faced bees, sometimes they have creamier yellow markings.

They are almost hairless and, unlike most other bees do not have any external pollen carrying equipment, but store the collected pollen in their crop. You are most likely to see them on umbellifers and the curious Reseda luteola plant, or “weld” which is interesting on it’s own account.
You will have seen it growing on wasteland, a rather straggly nondescript plant. However it is one of the ancient dye plants, which yields a beautiful yellow dye, and is commonly known as Dyer’s Rocket.
The photo below is from John Crellin’s excellent and extensive site Floralimages.co.uk on UK wild plants and fungi.

Floralimages.co.uk Photgrapher John Crellin

And its flowers reward a closer look too.

Photo by Hans Hillewaert from Wiki

The Painting

As with the Lasioglossum I painted a couple of days ago, I am struck by what a different world they inhabit. Perched precariously on top of swaying stamens peering over the tops of petals or looking down from the dizzying heights of a trembling leaf.

Initially I had designated the centre of a buttercup for the drawing, with this smart little bee clambering over the stamens, but in the end, opted for placing him right at the top of one umbel of the flat topped umbel cluster of Common Hogweed (Heracleum nsphondylium.

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White Faced Bee on Hogweed

watercolour and pencil on Arches HP 8”x 7”

A Bee for Buglife.. go to their show in April!

By Val Littlewood March 29, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

I promised Buglife something for their annual raffle, so today I have sent them a print of a little watercolour which I painted yesterday. This time I was quite happy with the quality and colour (yes I am very fussy) so I will also be having some for sale at “BUZZ”. I do like people to have a quality product so I now have some good quality watercolour paper and also some professional finishing spray which protects the print.

This was my first sketch which I am rather fond of and then the watercolour with the cornflower added.

I have been reading more and more about the plight of bees, the awful effects of pesticides and the loss of habitats, so I really want to do a bit more to help. I am not sure if the originals will sell at the exhibition, whose point is really just to spread the word about the “other” bees”, but I think prints might.

So I will be reviving my dormant Etsy account soon, and if I sell anything I will be able make a donation or two to bee/insect/wildlife charities. Thinking about what Buglife are doing I may well raffle these two original paintings at my exhibition.
The lucky winner of my signed print at the Buglife open day will also get a card of Bombus pascuorum and an extra gift of a bookmarky thing which will encourage them not only to come to the exhibition but to support bees as well.

Bookmarks, badges, cards, prints .. well why not !

BUGLIFE. org If you don’t know about Buglife they really are a great organisation, dedicated to

“Conserving the small things that run the world” Buglife is the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, and we are passionately committed to saving Britain’s rarest little animals, everything from bees to beetles, and spiders to snails.”

I wrote about them a couple of days ago when I heard their wonderful proposal for “rivers of flowers” across the UK, to provide wildlife corridors for bugs. Amongst bee related things on their site you can find:

Make your own garden bee nest (easy and cheap!)
Gardening for bumblebees
Bumblebee information

They are involved in many many projects and they have an open day in April which non members can attend for just £5 for adults and £2.50 for children which includes a light buffet lunch.

Buglife Members Day and Open Day 2010

Saturday 17 April, from 10:45am to 3pm at The Engine Group, 60 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 7RT. There will be talks and workshops, including these, all of which I would like to hear.

Life without chocolate, strawberries and coffee – a world without bugs’
‘Little nippers – Meet the freshwater crabs of Sri Lanka’
‘Dead wood is good wood for the Golden hoverfly’
‘Up on the Downs – chalk grassland butterflies and their conservation’

We will have live bugs, interesting displays, and activities for children. The Buglife team will be there to talk to you about our conservation work, wildlife gardening and how you can get involved.”

It sounds like a fascinating day, I am sorry I can’t be there and of course, if you enter the raffle you might win my little print… but, a life without chocolate? Unthinkable!

Lasioglossum calceatum, the Slender Mining Bee.. and Rivers of Flowers from Buglife.

By Val Littlewood March 26, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

This lovely Lasioglossum bee is in the tribe Halictiniae which is a huge family of bees.

These are the old bees, the ancient bees whose descendants were flying around 220 million years ago. I have painted a couple of them, including my first live model, the accommodating Agapostemon splendens which I wrote about here “The Stripy Halicitd Sweat Bee.”

Looking at the UK Lasioglossum bees you can see the family resemblance, but it seems that in the UK we don’t have quite such colourful varieties.
In looking for information about these bees I came across Jeremy Earley’s really excellent site Nature Conservation Imaging.

The site is particularly fascinating because he breaks it down into different UK habitats and what you might find there.
I spent hours reading through the excellent notes, which are illustrated with his wonderful photographs. It is a really informative site on solitary bees so I contacted him for a little help re the species and their favourite flowers.

He kindly sent me back a list of foraging plants taken from David Baldock’s “Bees of Surrey” which was published two years ago. ‘most often found at ragwort. Other flowers used include thistles, buttercups, common fleabane, lesser burdock, sheep’s-bit, red campion, chickweed and rough hawkbit.’
I think in trying to identify bees it really helps to know where you might find them! I had earmarked Rough Hawkbit for this bee some time ago but felt the humble Dandelion really needed a place in the exhibition especially as it is a star amongst bee flowers.

It is in the same huge Asteraceae family of composites, Hawkweeds, Cat’s Ears, and the Sow Thistles etc, which incidentally seems to be the only thing thriving here at the moment.

Rivers of Flowers in every County. B LINES from Buglife… I had a blissful morning with the radio and some pencils. Tweet deck was off. Photoshop, Illustrator and their accomplices were dormant. I was listening to the news and heard Buglife.org, one of the charities who will be supporting the exhibition, calling for the UK to be crossed with flower filled corridors for bees. What a lovely idea and beautiful image.

“B-lines would be rivers of flowers in every county, one going east west and the other north south. They would be carefully planned to avoid woods, lakes and other unsuitable habitats, but would connect people to wildlife sites to enable better appreciation of British wildlife.”

This photo accompanies the article, the beautiful Six-spot burnet moths (Zygaena filipendulae)© Andrew Whitehouse, on Vipers Bugloss I think.

They want the government to step in but I was thinking, if everyone sowed just one packet of wildflower seeds it would make a real difference and I am all for guerilla planting.. think of all those arterial roads, their verges and roundabouts.
It’s an interesting article.
Do read more, Call For More Wildflowers.

I will be donating a small watercolour to them for their annual charity auction next month which I will (hope to) be painting in the next few days and will put on the blog.

The Painting.

I think a lot about how to make an image, where I place things and what I want to say. I am struck by the delicacy of these little bees and was wondering how the world looks from their perspective.

A low leaf to us is high to them. So I deliberately kept the space below him clear and uncluttered just to give a sense of the airiness and lightness. It is, after all, irrelevant how far the drop is to the ground if you can fly! These little things make me feel like some lumpen, clumsy Gulliver. Jainism is looking more attractive by the day!

I suppose the rot set in when Ant came to stay. Dear Ant! I do miss him. Paper Wasps are just not the same, far too serious. No cavorting around the drawing board for them, just baleful glaring.

Grubby sketches but useful to me, they just help me sort out ideas quickly. Then the final picture. Yes, I did include the dandelion flower, but not quite all :).

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Lasioglossum calcaetum with Dandelion

Watercolour and Graphite on Arches HP approx 8”x8” ****

And a big thank you to all, for your kind comments and emails, re my battles with the hard grey stuff.
Lord knows, I have troubles enough with the soft grey stuff.
Some degree of calm returned today and it does help to know I am not the only one, but serene gliding is still some way off..

Learn to Love Dandelions: Dandelions and Bees

By Val Littlewood March 21, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

Photo by Ernita at Shutterstock.com

The Enemy of my Father

I used to earn my pocket money by gardening. It left me with a delight in growing things, a love of digging, a hatred of mowing and a passion for weeding.
This was instilled in me by my father who, although a passionate gardener was adamant that things had their place and in our garden, then surrounded on every side by fields, ancient grazing, hedges, dykes, and flower filled verges ( yes this is some time ago) the place of the “weeds” was very firmly on the other side of the straggly wire fence.

My father battled with everything in the garden, with mice, birds, squirrels, this pest, that pest , this canker, that whitefly, the insidious “Yorkshire Fog” and creeping “twitch”, but his greatest foe was, and still is, the Dandelion.

At 92 he is now incapable of much weeding, but if the CIA really could have floored a goat with one stare, my father would have been lining up for training, so that he could march around the garden glaring at dandelions, in his endless and hopeless campaign to eradicate these cheery yellow interlopers.

He wasn’t a great user of chemicals mostly because he was thrifty and, in his eyes, hard work can accomplish most things, so I have fond memories of crowbar-ing flagstones and lifting patches of lawn and excavating huge holes, deep enough to find bedrock, in our relentless search for the dread taproot.

On my last trip home I was ordered to weed the flagged patio. Dandelions love these little narrow gaps between stones don’t they? No hoe or fork or knife can do much more than behead them, which is as nothing to a dandelion. I

am sure that one day soon my father will glance out of the French windows, see a new, dancing, mocking dandelion thumbing its nose at him from between stones and die of apoplectic rage.

At first I just did a bit of beheading but, if my father’s hearing is non existent his eyesight is excellent, and I was told I had been sloppy, and sent back out to do a proper job. I was reluctant but they had to go, I just can’t be held responsible for my father’s early demise (if at 92 that is possible) can I?

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Bee” in Dandelions by Duncan de Young at Shutterstock

The Friend of Bees

Despite my tentative pleading of the benefits of weeds, my fathers position remains firm. I have learnt to love them, especially dandelions and I have said before on the blog that one very good way to help bees is to stop weeding, or at least have a weedy wild patch. (As I write this I feel waves of stunned and pitying disapproval winging their way from the UK.. “my daughter has completely lost her mind”.. he will be thinking).

I am currently drawing some of the tiny little solitary bees, and they love the dandelion family.. as do all bees. The importance to bees of this pretty, if tenacious, weed cannot be over emphasised.

Their long flowering season and rich nectar and pollen source, gives an early boost to emerging bees and keeps them going in the autumn too. Some different bees enjoying dandelions;

Photos Kirschner and Anna Dorobek

Photos Yaroslav and dpaint

Photos Dmitri Melnik and Alexander Maksimov

Photos Hway Kiong Lim and Laurie Barr …and of course they are not just for the bees;

Photo, Titus Manea All the above photographs are reproduced with the very kind permission of Shutterstock.com…

A Childhood Sweetheart and Artist’s Inspiration

I am sure you all know the other benefits of dandelions.. it would be a dull and sad child who has never blown a dandelion clock or made a little salad for an apprehensive parent, and the internet is full of excellent info and enthusiasts!
But my blog friend Curtiss Clark who aside from running the Newtown BEE newspaper (Hmm, I wonder how we met 🙂 ) keeps a lovely blog and back in 2006 wrote this; “In Defense of Dandelions” .

It’s as thoughtful and delightful a piece as any dandelion lover could wish for. He extols their virtues, reminds us of carefree days and wants to restore the place they had in our hearts when we were children:

“We are beaten year after year by the botanical equivalent of a smiley face. For certain scowley-faced green-lawn-obsessive guys I know, it’s infuriating. Sometimes our own ideas ruin the world for us. While we are feverishly poisoning dandelions and pulling them out by the roots, we are often simultaneously enriching the soil of garden beds so that we may plant asters, or daisies, or marigolds, or sunflowers, or zinnias, all of which are first cousins of the dandelion in the family Asteraceae.

If we can ever reconcile the green lawn guys with the dandelion, the world would be a brighter place. But getting them to lie down with their rival weed is a little like getting the lamb to lie down with the lion.

It’s a lovely piece Curtiss! (Which I may read to my father when I am home in June, if he has survived the spring emergence.) The humble Dandelion has inspired many artists and designers.. hundreds of us appreciate its beauty, intricacy and mystery, in every part of its life cycle, especially those gorgeous seed heads. Here are two 2 favourite images of mine which go a little beyond the cheery yellow.

A beautiful intricate Stewart Maclennan, woodengraving made in 1940
from the Museum of New Zealand here.

I am very fond of his work, as I am of Charles Burchfield who I have written about before. Here is a late work Dandelion Seed Heads and the Moon (1961-65)

This painting is mentioned in a conversation about Burchfield between Hunter Drohojowksa-Philp and Robert Gober, which you can read online at Artnet here

HDP: And in this room is one of my favorite watercolors of the dandelions, where it looks like he’s lying down in a field of dandelions. RG: Exactly. In the middle of the night, at 70 years old, with his head on the ground, looking at the moon through dandelions. That’s the way to go.

Yes indeed Charles, you and my father, but yours would have been more restful!

The next painting .. a start

Meanwhile back at the bee house here, I am drawing a Lassioglossum and, happily, Jane at the excellent Urban Extention Blog has a super photo which vindicates my choice of a dandelion of some sort to accompany this smart little bee.

Photo Jane Adams here

I have painted the bee and will probably perch him on the leaf of a dandelion or at least one of the related family, but am procrastinating about the flower … all those petals..sigh.
Of course I should say flowers because the dandelion is a composite flower, so made up of many separate tiny flowerlets, each with their own petals and nectar source.. a true bee banqueting table.

Lasioglossum…a start…

Buzz.. The Bee Exhibition is all set for June, Lumen Centre, London

By Val Littlewood March 19, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

An Little Oasis of Bee Tranquility.. right in the middle of London!

There are lots of wonderful “Bee” events going on in London this year and of course mine will be one of them ( shameless trumpet blowing and self promotion!)
I am proud to announce “BUZZ …. a Celebration of British Bees and their Flowers” will be held in June from the 1st to the 26th at LUMEN.

And the venue is just BEAUTIFUL! .. I really couldn’t be more delighted. It‘s the about-to-be-opened gallery of LUMEN the newly opened multi-faith centre in Bloomsbury.

It’s a tucked away, very beautiful space, in my very favourite part of London not far from the British Museum. Leafy squares, book shops, hospitals, Universities, the British Library. Home once to Dickens, Darwin, Vanessa Bell, Virginia Wolfe, and Yeats. Memories of the old publishing houses, Faber and Faber, and of course Beatrix Potter’s publisher, Frederick Warne.
I remember seeing their office by chance, years ago. Bloomsbury is wonderful, such history, such learning, such literature. LUMEN CENTRE from an article in e.architect:

..An exquisitely designed new multi-faith centre for worship and contemplation by Theis and Khan Architects

Lumen URC and Community Centre Photos : Nick Kane

Created within the shell of an existing 1960s United Reformed church, lumen will be used regularly for Christian services as well as offering an open invitation to people of all faiths to use the spaces. The site has a rich history. The 1960s church replaced an older church, which was bombed during the Second World War, and backs on to an ancient burial ground for the people of Bloomsbury, now called St. George’s Gardens.
The new sacred space, known as the Shaft of Light is central to the design. A large-scale intervention, rendered in white, is a spectacular conical, shell-like space, which reaches through the full 11-metre height of the building to a single roof-light. The Shaft of Light offers people from any faith or belief a secluded area for worship or for private gatherings. The quality of the light inside the space subtly changes, depending on the weather and time of year, adding to the sense of peace and separation from the bustle of the outside world.
In addition, a tranquil garden at the rear of the building offers a contemporary interpretation of a cloister, with slender brushed stainless steel columns supporting an arcade around a central courtyard planted with herbs and silver birch trees. The cloister will be open for people to enjoy a quiet moment of reflection or simply stop for a lunchtime sandwich.
Commissioned by the United Reformed Church, lumen has continued the ancient tradition of commissioning artists and craftspeople. Working with Modus Operandi art consultants, the church has commissioned two artists to create new three dimensional art works, which are carefully integrated within the building.
Internationally acclaimed artist Alison Wilding has created a trio of artworks: a new font, a drinking fountain and a garden fountain,a shallow bronze dish with the inscription “A spring of water, welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). The strong architectural form of the Shaft of Light, designed by Theis and Khan Architects is the key point of reference for both the drinking fountain and font.

Lumen URC and Community Centre Photos : Nick Kane

The north window on the street front, features a spiralling, geometric sculptural screen, entitled North Elevation, by rising artist Rona Smith. Made of bronze, the sculpture is suspended within the alcove of the window, and arcs gently into the main space. The design evokes the traditional imagery of many religions, including Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist. The artwork explores how geometry unites diverse systems of symbolism and representation and reflects lumen’s ethos of inclusive worship for people of all faiths.
The art works which have been commissioned aim to signify universal values, yet each are open to the interpretation of the individual viewer. We hope that they will encourage a sense of contemplation, and a further means of engagement with the centre, bringing together people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds.
Maggie Hindley, (former) minister Minister, lumen comments: “What impressed me about our architects and artists was that they listened, and asked questions, and brainstormed with us and really got to understand our vision before coming up with any proposals; and then they listened some more as the plans evolved. So we got a physical expression of our own goals, but more beautifully and imaginatively than we could have dreamed of.”

Read the whole article here.. although I have not left much out! Also read all about LUMEN, their history and wonderful facilities on their website here. I will be telling you more as the weeks go by.

Browse, Read and Relax The gallery will be sharing a space in part with the newly opened cafe, which we are hoping will be serving honey cake to have with a cup of tea… and maybe other honey themed foods! ..more on that to come…

part of lumen cafe and gallery. And while you are having a refreshing snack you can do some reading as well!

I am delighted to say we are getting support so far from:

Buglife.org.uk “the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, …passionately committed to saving Britain’s rarest little animals”.

The Herb Society who are having a “BEE AWARE” year and whose conference this year is all about bees.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust two of whose bees, the Shrill Carder and the Great Yellow I will be painting for the exhibition.
They will all be providing literature on bees, herbs, flowers and gardening for bees….

And Brigit from the wonderful “The Big Green Idea” the charity dedicated to showing people how sustainable living can be easy, healthy, inexpensive and fun, will hopefully be having an input too. ….all this and I have only just started asking, so lots more info to come and it will be on the blog and even, maybe, on Twitter..

More Megachile..The Lovely Leafcutter Bee again.

By Val Littlewood March 18, 2010 January 19, 2020 Uncategorized

I have written before about these delightful bees in my post “The Leafcutter Bee: Can Opener of the Bee World” so no need to repeat myself, and I don’t have much time either.

I have made a rather slow start to this next lot of bees.
But you can, and should, go and watch two wonderful short films by the BBC Natural History Unit of these amazing bees chewing round holes in rose leaves and transporting the huge pieces back to their nests where they form them into leafy cocoons for their little ones.The speed is quite astonishing.
The films, complete with cooing wood pigeon soundtrack, are on the excellent site Arkive http://www.arkive.org/megachile-leaf-cutter-bee/megachile-centuncularis/video-09.html.

Leafcutter bees don’t rely only on rose leaves but use also birch, ash, beech and many other leaves. (I have read that the serrated edge is significant but am not sure about it, but I can see how it might give them a good starting point).

Megachile concinna in Jamaica uses bougainvillea bracts and in the USA Megachile umatillensis uses evening primrose petals, how pretty!

There are several species in the UK but the most commonly seen are, Megachile centuncularis (the one I am painting), and Megachile willughbiella.

The Slow Megachile Painting Slow decisions… Day one… Tuesday

This particular painting has taken me an agonisingly long time.. mainly because I kept changing my mind. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to do, but now I have to consider the paintings as a set and make sure I get a variety of poses and compositions etc. My very first thumbnails done back in Feb were a good guide but I have already altered one or two.

First British Bee Thumbnails

I knew I wanted to include the rose leaves with the cut out circles because Megachile centuncularis is also known as the “rose leaf cutter bee” due to her partiality to roses.
So I made more thumbnails and initially chose to work on one with the bee flying away from the rose, mainly because I really wanted a more front face view. But, if she were flying away from the leaves, she should really be carrying a piece of leaf.

I pondered all this, spent half a day going down this route and then I decided against it. The bees carry the leaves clasped between their jaws and held with their legs which does to be honest, look rather strange, especially if this is your first encounter with a leafcutter bee.

So I changed the view to her flying towards the rose in eager anticipation of a bit of leaf chewing…I had tried the wings in different positions too but liked the anticipation of the forward position, they are almost like welcoming open arms.

I am a bit sad to lose the engaging front view eye contact .. but it makes more sense. Also, as I did with the Leu Gardens exhibition I will be having explanatory notes to accompany the work, so I think I will include a drawing of her carrying the leaf there. But it has taken me a day to get this far.

Slow painting… Day two… Wednesday …

At the side of the board is one of my boxes of bees with a little leafcutter under the magnifying glass. It’s a really pretty bee with such personality. Like all of them they take a full day to draw out and paint. So much work for something so small!

Slow drawing…. Day three… Thursday

I really thought today was going to be easy because all I have to do is draw the rose.. I went and found some rose leaves nearby, looked at my Leu photos for a nice single rose and then just couldn’t decide how to arrange them together.

I tried what seemed like a million different variations of flower angles and leaf arrangements.. these are just two which I was quite happy with, Up a bit…. down a bit …

But I eventually realised that I was uneasy with the scale.. so enlarged the rose a bit and then felt a lot happier but its now 1.30pm. sigh ..

My biggest problem at this stage is trying to keep everything clean.
With graphite pencils you do have to keep washing your hands and I try to remember to work with paper under my hand. Hazards are everywhere and cups of tea are usually balanced precariously next to me!

However it’s almost finished, perhaps I’ll add a couple more leaves at the bottom but it’s 5.30..enough for today or rather for the last 3 days! I am glad I turned the flower head up, its more optimistic and less watchful on the part of the flower.

While she is turning her head to the sky the little bee can come and help herself to some more leaf curls. Hmm… that smacks a bit of whimsy doesn’t it, a word I dislike intensely… blame it on hours of solitary confinement:

Little Miss Leafcutter off for some Leafcurls 🙂

Watercolour and graphite on Arches HP approx 8 x 8 inches

Shakespeare, Dulac, Rackham, Beatrix Potter and Babbitty Bees

By Val Littlewood March 14, 2010 January 21, 2020 Uncategorized

This is a self-indulgent, heady combination of people I love! Beautiful words and images arising from sensitive, accurate observations and appreciation of the natural world. Shakespeare and Beatrix Potter, creators of magical worlds and Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham, the very best of fairy illustrators.

Shakespeare’s bees I am an unashamed fan of both “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest”. During my blog break, in between trying to organise things for the exhibition I went back to look at these two wonderful plays and their mention of bees.

When I was a child I was fascinated by my grandmother’s tiny house which was full of books. There were many small cheap editions of the classics which included the easy reader version of Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare where I first encountered these magical fairie worlds.

There are many references to bees in Shakespeare but probably the most famous is Ariel’s song from the Tempest Act Five, Scene 1

“Ariel: Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
in a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch, when owls do cry.
On a bat’s back I do fly
after summer merrily, merrily shall I live now,
under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Shall I live now “

Edmund Dulac’s illustration of Ariel living his freedom is sublime, in the quality of the botanical observation and the spirit of the words and of course the virtuoso handling of watercolour.

In “A Midsummer Nights Dream” Titania requests that the fairies look after her new love the Donkey headed Bottom,

“Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,”

Later in ACT IV, Scene 1 Bottom revels in his new status and requests of Cobweb:

“Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your
weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped
humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag.”

Here is the incomparable Arthur Rackham’s illustration for the passage:

The “red hipped Humble Bee” in question which Shakespeare refers to might well be Bombus lapidarius as he refers in other plays to the “red tailed Humble Bee”.

Rackham’s interpretation shows a white tail, which is sometimes the case with both lapidarius and lucorum but probably not to that extent. However I am not one of the joyless ones who like to niggle, I just revel in the gorgeous pen drawing of the thistle.
There was an understanding in Shakespeare’s time that bees collected both wax and honey from flowers but he would know that bumble bees carry honey in a separate honey stomach, more than the honey bee due to their size.

In fact on a rather gruesome note, Gilbert White in Letter XXVII To The Honourable Daines Barrington December 12, 1775, mentions a simple boy who would eat bees for their honey.
It’s a very curious passage written in a matter of fact way but not without some sympathy for the boy’s condition. You can read more here in Project Gutenberg Etext of The Natural History of Selborne.

Beatrix Potter. Wizz, zizz and Babbitty

But away from all that to the charm and beauty of Beatrix Potter Anyone who knows anything about her is already aware that she was a very fine natural history observer and painter as well as the writer and illustrator of her wonderful books.
Here is a set of drawings including some bees. see the beautiful big aforementioned Bombus lapidarius on the left.

You can see this and more of her beautiful work at the V and A’s site here in an article about her entitled “Beauty in the Detail”

“She used a fine, dry brush to define meticulously and minutely the anatomy of even the most delicate specimens. Fascination with scientific accuracy underpins Potter’s artistic technique, a bee, beetle, butterfly, ladybird and spider enjoy supporting roles in The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse. Potter observed them, and her ‘ most terribly tidy particular little mouse’ with astonishing attention to detail.”

And here, indeed is the wonderful Mrs Babbitty Bumble from the Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse.
Poor Mrs Tittlemouse who only wants a neat and tidy house is beset by bugs..and the ultimate is finding the mossy nest of bumblebees in her larder.

“ I am not in the habit of letting lodgings, this is an intrusion”

she says and enlists the help of the muddy footed toad Mr. Jackson who will do anything for a little dish of honey!

Mr Jackson it appears eats one of the other unwelcome guest hiding in the plate rack, ( a woodlouse I think ) but draws the line at the Bumble bee. About to take a bite he puts her down “I do not like bumble bees, they are all over bristles”

But he does help Mrs Tittlemouse to restore order and is rewarded with acorn cups of honey.. and all is well.. but I think the bumblebees had to find another home!

You can read the spreads yourself at Childrensbooksonline , but these, above, are taken from on old book belonging to Chris.

We only have a few things in the apartment here and Chris travels very light, but there are 3 Beatrix Potter books in the book case, they were his as a child and read by his children too.

There is nothing nicer than an old book passed down from generation to generation is there? I appreciate a fine pristine first edition but I do love old books, love to see their previous owners names, love the grubby thumbed pages of much loved and well used favourite volume.

I recently picked up an old rather tatty volume of Sladens “Humble bee” which I had ordered from the local library. The librarian apologised for the condition it was in.. “But” I said, “it’s the contents .. it’s all about the contents .. isn’t it?”
It’s exactly how I feel about people too..

A final thought for all you beekeepers this coming year, old and new.. May your “singing masons be busy building roofs of gold” Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act 1 Scene 2.

Tag: bee painting