Tag: pencil drawing

Some Rabbits

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It’s very easy for a whole day to go by here without really doing very much except wander about the countryside, round the lake and along the hedgerows.

In a new place there is so much to take in. But I don’t even have to go out.

Opposite us there is a family of rabbits who play in the road in the early morning. They lollop about and play and nibble the grass or whatever it is that rabbits nibble.
This morning I was fascinated to watch one of them pull down branches of the beech hedge and eat the young leaves. It was very intent on its delicious breakfast, so I could sketch it quickly.

young rabbits sm

Rabbit nibbling the young beech shoots at the bottom of the hedge.

It was a good start but somehow the rest of the day just got away from me. … but I did find a rather interesting fossil of some kind.

We are on Oxford Clay here, which according to Bucks Earth Heritage webpage

“was deposited in a deepening sea around 160 million years ago.”

How wonderful…how exactly does a sea deepen?

Honey Bee and Lavender

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Bee watching is one of lifes gentle and absorbing pastimes and something which should be prescribed as a perfect stress reliever. This past summer I spent many hours watching different bees coming and going on the lavender.

So, for this commission I wanted to portray this little honey bee just as I had seen them, busy in amongst the lavender stalks and enthusiastically throwing their front legs up in the air as they are about to land.
As well as my own observations I had the help of Elivin’s bee, Dads lavender, and some scientific research about how bees land. The research really just confirms what common sense and observation tells you and if you watch bees fairly closely you can see for yourself how they land and how they use their feet and antennae.

But the study “The Moment before Touchdown: Landing Manoeuvres of the Honeybee Apis mellifera”  by Mandyam Srinivasan is interesting, (you can read the whole study here) The Journal of Experimental Biology here reported on the study:

…….Srinivasan began wondering what happens in the final moments of a touchdown.
Flies landing on a ceiling simply grab hold with their front legs and somersault up as they zip along, but Srinivasan knew that a bee’s approach is more sedate. …..Initially, the bees approached from almost any direction and at any speed; however, as they got closer to the test platforms, they slowed dramatically, almost hovering, until they were 16 mm from the platform, when they ground to a complete halt, hovering for anything ranging from 50 ms to over 140 ms.
When the surface was horizontal or inclined slightly, the bees’ hind legs were almost within touching distance of the surface, so it was simply a matter of the bee gently lowering itself and grabbing hold with its rear feet.

However, when the insects were landing on surfaces ranging from vertical to inverted `ceilings’, their antennae were closest to the surface during the hover phase.
When the antennae grazed the surface, this triggered the bees to reach up with the front legs, grasp hold of the surface and then slowly heave their middle and hind legs up too. `

bees landing

In conclusion: “During the actual touchdown, bees simply use the appendage closest to the landing surface to make first contact – that is, the hind legs in the case of horizontal surfaces, and the front legs or antennae in the case of vertical or inverted surfaces.”

It doesn’t really surprise me that bees are sensible and adopt the easiest possible landing strategies without any of the showy back flips of flies. But the  use of their antennae is fascinating. Really useful things, antennae!

Honey bee and Lavender Coming into land on a sprig of lavender is my little worker honey bee, pollen baskets part full and front legs raised in anticipation of touchdown.

 

Hbee bg

“Honey Bee amongst Lavender” watercolour and pencil on Arches HP 9”x 9”

It has been a lovely commission to work on especially as I have been working on it in between entertaining my father. As a beekeeper many years ago he was interested in this painting and it’s slow development has been a jumping off point for general honey bee discussions, anecdotes and fond memories of times long past.

The beehives are still behind the garage. Next spring I intend to brave the Sleeping Beauty barrier of brambles and explore a little. Dad and I have been wondering what little bee or bug may have taken advantage of this ready made if crumbling shelter. I think there will be a big gang of slaters.. but who knows, there may even be a bee or two?

Sketchbook Rooks and the Food Music of Worms

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I am still up in Lincolnshire having exchanged the high flying seagulls of the south east coast for the lovely wind tossed, scrappy black rooks who circle high above the big copper beech and roost noisily in the nearby sycamore.

I am very fond of rooks and have written about them before on the blog,  see “Beastly Birds”.

They are not only very bright birds but are also beautiful and very funny. In between working on commissions I am entertaining my elderly father who luckily shares my fondness for rooks. On a recent trip out we passed a little gang of rooks who were intently prospecting for grubs on a grassy verge.

We stopped to watch them for a while. They hopped and strutted about, sometimes stopping to stare at the ground, sometimes with their heads on one side, adopting a sort of listening pose.

“They always remind me of people concentrating on some sort of orchestral performance” said Dad

“Who is performing,  do you think?” I ask.

“Worms” he said, without a moment of hesitation,  “They are listening to the music of worms, they are listening to the worms playing food music.”  That’s why they are listening so carefully”

Ahhh, “food music” of course.  My father is not mad, he just has a lovely turn of phrase.

Some Sketchbook Rooks

rooks sm bg

rook 1 bg

rook2 bg

Listening to food music….

Lavender update and “Nature’s Sting”

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I mentioned “Project Lavender” a couple of posts ago, which is a project to find out, amongst other things, which lavender is the best for bees. Downderry Nursery have kindly sent me the names of the varieties which are being tested. Here they are:

Ashdown Forest
Blue Mountain White
Folgate
Hidcote
Imperial Gem
Maillette
Melissa Lilac
Princess Blue
Rosea
Edelweiss
Dutch Group
Gros Bleu
Grosso

Don’t get too excited though because they won’t know which one is the favourite for 3 years.. but you could always just get one of each of course and do your own experiment. And big thankyous to all the people who send me bee news as I have been very cut off from things recently.

Ben Bulow sent me the link to the BBC´s excellent piece:

Nature’s sting: The real cost of damaging Planet Earth by Richard Anderson Business reporter, BBC News It’s interesting that the article falls under the “business” rather than the “ecology” category and is about “just how expensive the degradation of nature really is.” For example, the staggering cost to the world “of replacing insect pollination is around $190bn every year”

You don’t have to be an environmentalist to care about protecting the Earth’s wildlife. Just ask a Chinese fruit farmer who now has to pay people to pollinate apple trees because there are no longer enough bees to do the job for free.

It’s a sobering article, highlighting some recent reports which show how our disregard for the natural order of things can cost us very dearly. The decline of bees and other insect pollinators is just one small part of the whole mess we are finding ourselves in.
Recently I have been reading more about the Insect Pollinators Initiative that was announced in April 2009. The projects sound interesting and much needed and I am glad and 10 million pounds is a fair bit of money but, a year on, it seems it is still being “announced”. I am just wondering why they don’t get on and do something.

However, I am reassured by the Living With Environmental Change newsletter who say this about the project

The causes of pollinator declines are likely to be multifactorial, involving complex interactions between pollinators, their pests and pathogens, and the environment. Multidisciplinary and systems-based approaches will be important in elucidating them. In particular, the funders are keen to bring to bear on these issues – alongside the expertise of the existing pollinator research community – relevant new skills such as state-of-the-art and high-throughput “post-genomic” technologies, and the latest techniques in epidemiological and ecological modelling.

Hmm.. that’s a fine and dandy bit of writing but I am still not sure what they will be doing and anyway it will be five years before there is any conclusive evidence.

I hope they all keep daily blogs and account sheets, so that we can see what they are up to. Perhaps they will ? Perhaps we can be given some info along the way so we, the public, can do something about it, or perhaps we have to wait for the “fully funded presentation” in five years time… sigh… I know research takes time but by their own admission the decline needs “urgent” attention.

However lots of non scientists are getting on with things right now and this year has been wonderful for “bee awareness” and I hope it will be carried over into next year and the year after that.

I shall be doing what I can with my “Buzz” exhibition and some talks and generally enthusing ( might that be “boring”?) people about bees.
I do think I need to start including some other pollinators in the blog too.

And we can all plant a few more wildflowers and of course, some more lavender…Sorry my faithful blog readers, I am preaching to the converted I know. Here are a couple of studies of a little lavender sprig I found yesterday.

Yes, despite the biting north east wind which has been ripping leaves off the trees and making a sea front walk just sheer unadulterated misery, there are still a few lavender flowers to be seen. Tough little plant this!

lavender 2 sm

lav flower sm

A (hardy) lavender sprig … pencil

Life on the Elegant Ivy.

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Yesterday on a beautiful sunny Sunday I spent a good hour just watching the comings and goings on one of the ivy bushes which grow on waste ground near the railway tracks. These scrubby bits of land are a tangle of brambles and ivy and both yesterday and today the ivy was alive with happy insects. Here are a few: Ivy bee sunning itself,

Honey bee and ladybird,

Bombus lucorum I think,

image

Drone hoverfly I think and lucorum..

beefly and luc

A very sleepy and slow B terrestris. I wondered if this lovely big bee was getting close to the end of its days?

bterr

As well as bees, wasps, flies and ladybirds, the bushes were covered with butterflies but just the one species, the pretty Red Admirals and so many of them. All were so intent on feeding that I could get quite close.

   

There was one huge hoverfly. I think the biggest in the UK and another insect mostly found in the South. Sometimes called the hornet mimic hoverfly, (you can see why), this is the splendid Volucella zonaria.

     

There were many other little hoverflies, and two sorts of wasps, this one was having a brush up.

wasp

and on some nearby brambles, what I think is a ruby tiger moth caterpillar

which will, with a bit of luck, turn into one of these,

Wonderful picture by Ben Sale of the Ruby Tiger moth Phragmatobia fulginosa from the https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/ruby-tiger

*Update…I found one in my garden in Grafham in 2016…beautiful

Everything seems to like this ivy bush much more than other varieties in the town. I wonder why? Perhaps the nectar is different. But this particular bush was covered with life whereas other were largely unvisited.

This one has very elegant deeply lobed leaves. I put a leaf on the windowsill to sketch it (the dead fly has now gone..). This is my only available surface at the moment so I sit with my sketchbook on my knee, but the shadows are lovely.

Elegant Ivy Leaf….

ivyb ivybg

Pencil sketch 6”

Elvin’s Bee, and Natural Beekeeping

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Elvin, a local beekeeper who has found me a model for my bee and lavender painting, a deceased little worker bee, just perfect for some studies for the painting.
It was particularly interesting to meet Elvin because he is a “natural “ beekeeper and builds Top Bar and Warre hives, in which the bees build their own combs.

image

Picture of Abbe Warre with his hive from Biobee site

This is the wonderful Abbe Emile Warre who developed the hive also known as “The People’s Hive”. There is a super site called biobees.com where you can find extremely comprehensive info all about Warre hives.
It is written and compiled by David Heaf , see more here. It’s an interesting story about a kind man who wanted to develop a simple, natural, bee friendly hive.

He apparently experimented with over 300 different types of hive before coming up with a top bar hive which basically allows bees to do what they do naturally and build their own combs.
There is a lot more to it than that of course…go and read more, it’s fascinating!

From Elvin’s site Majorbeehives.com you can order one of the beautifully simple Top bar or Warre hives and here is photo from his site of a Warre hive in the snow, reminding me just how cold it can be in the UK.

hive in snow

Elvins snowy beehive. He has some wonderful photos of the natural combs too..

top bar

I am going to read more about natural beekeeping. If/when I eventually have a house or a garden I will be very tempted to have one of these bee friendly homes.

top bar h

Some busy happy bees arriving with some very full pollen baskets to Elvin’s Top Bar hive yesterday.
There was also some sun, unlike today which has been relentlessly cold and miserable.. that’s the East coast for you! I asked him where his bees would be foraging now..where else but on ivy of course.

wasp

And today I found some more ivy with more ivy bees, wasps and honey bees. The ivy is also festooned with many spiders webs, those big fat spiders that come out in Autumn (photos to come).

I spent quite a long time rescuing a couple of honey bees from the sticky webs.
A wasp had already been wrapped up and stored for later…oh dear. The bees took some time to rid themselves of the remnants of the web but eventually flew away just fine. I am rather hoping they were Elvin’s bees.

Elvin’s Honey Bee Sketches. It’s a while since I drew a bee so I wanted to make a few studies. Little honey bees have endearing heart shaped faces and rather attractive spiky hair on the top of their heads.

elvins beebg

Grey Skies and Ginkgo Sketches

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It has now rained almost constantly for two days now,  not much in the way of beautiful clouds or apocalyptic storms but just gloomy grey skies.
Have they been sent as a reminder of what the UK has in store for us?

It’s time to seriously sort out, throw out, sell up and pack. I am now being ruthless.  It’s less than 3 weeks to go to our moving day.

However to lift my spirits a bit I have started thinking about my next commission which involves, to my delight, the wonderful gingko tree. I went to Leu Gardens a few days ago to collect a sprig of leaves.
They have quite a few ginkgo trees which I wrote about long ago,  back in September 2008. when I drew three little leaves for  “Leaf of the Day”  see Ginkgo Leaves.

ginkgo

The leaves have been in the fridge and although not quite as bouncy as when I first brought them back, they are fine for sketching.

I hung the sprigs from my lamp to draw them.

ginkgo branch sm

The curious leathery leaves with their deeply ridged surface grow in groups from little nodules along the branch. Their flat fan-like shape and very long petioles allow them catch the slightest puff of wind and flutter so beautifully in the breeze. (I am reminded so much of the Cottonwood trees we saw up in New Mexico.)
The raised vein structure in the leaves themselves is rather odd,  branching from just two parallel veins they repeatedly divide into two and do not join.

ginkgo sm      ginkgo 2 sm

Sketchbook drawings,  pencil 12’’ x9”

The Ancient Survivor When I first wrote about them I was fascinated to learn more of their ancient and wonderful history and I quote again this passage from the really excellent site The Ginkgo Pages, which really sums up the appeal of this tree.

“As the paleobotanist, Sir Albert Seward (1938) remarks: “It appeals to the historic soul: we see it as an emblem of changelessness, a heritage from worlds too remote for our human intelligence to grasp, a tree which has in its keeping the secrets of the immeasureable past.”

Dating back a staggering 270 million years, it rubbed shoulders with dinosaurs, in fact it predates them. It is unique, in an order entirely on its own, the Ginkgoales.

Once widespread over America Europe and Asia, it was thought to be extinct but the wonderful explorer, physician and naturalist Engelbert Kaempfer found it while visiting Buddhist monks in Nagasaki 1691.

He brought seeds back, planted them in the Botanic Garden at Utrecht where I think the ancient tree still survives and, talking about survival,  it is one of the few trees that survived Hiroshima. I am struck that  it seems glib to summarise the story of Darwin’s  “Living Fossil” in such a few words.

So stop for a moment and ponder on those bald statements, the links to a time we can barely comprehend, the extraordinary journeys of the early explorers, the survival of some things which defy the most awful destruction dreamed up by man. It makes our little individual lives, our petty concerns and preoccupations seem so trivial.

Consider the gingko and be humbled! And do go and read Cor Kwant’s Ginkgo Pages!!  More ginkgo tomorrow.

“Buzz” ….Are we nearly there yet?… No.

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I am just looking at the calendar.

I have a little over 5 weeks before I have to fly to the UK with all the pictures.
I now have 30 frames waiting there for me to fill.
I still have to organise the mounts (mats) but I can’t really do that until I have finished the paintings.

I have to write some blurb about each one, there are prices to consider, a catalogue even a simple one, hangings, fixings, numberings, a board with bee info, leaflets, the cafe, prints, cards and of course the horror of “promotion”.

“How many more bees???” “Is there an end in sight??”  “Can we have something different?”

The trouble is that the more bees I paint, the more seem to line up asking to be painted.

How can I possibly leave out the long horned bee? How can I possibly ignore the winsome girdled mining bee? How can the set be complete without the beautiful blue ceratina?
The problem with learning about bees is that you get pulled into a completely absorbing and seemingly ever expanding family. I can’t believe that once I had doubts about finding enough interesting subjects.
I have finished and blogged 14 bees, repainted two 2, added 3 to the list.

Which means there are about 9 more to go making about 24 bee portraits.
My original intention was to include some of the cuckoo bees, and even a predator or two but there just won’t be time.
The other 6 frames will hopefully contain some watercolour sketches of just a few of the favourite bee flowers.

Its nice to think that they might be a bit quicker but that is not normally the case. However this week I must start them so… yes…something a bit different this week. Interspersed with the remaining bees of course. Meanwhile some snail shell sketches…as my progress seems rather slow they seem appropriate..

shell sketches sm

Meet Nepalese Beauty, Little “Lili”, lover of the Air Potato.

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The Potato Vine Problem
Back in July 2008 I wrote about the Potato Vine.

I was intrigued by its little potatoes and thought it was rather elegant, with its beautiful heart shape leaves, but I do, now, have to admit that the Air Potato is a problem… this was my drawing.

airpotato

It grows everywhere, dropping its little potatoes which root enthusiastically.
New and vigorous plants spring up immediately and twist creep and crawl over everything. It’s a shame because in isolation it is pretty and as a member of the Yam family was initially brought to Florida as a possible food crop.

However before you rush and and gather them up for a cheap meal it seems that the “uncultivated” ones here are poisonous. So, ‘cultivation’ must breed out the poison. (I am tempted to draw a hopeful analogy to the human race), Good Air Potato identification and info here.

What prompted this post was that on Saturday, the 8th Annual Air Potato Raid was held, in Orlando. This year their goal was to involve over 500 volunteers and collect 10,000 lbs of dreaded potatoes to try and bring the whole spreading menace under control. It must seem like a hopeless task!

However there may be hope, winging over the horizon, direct from Katmandu, in the shape of this pretty little beetle.

Lilioceris near impressa. LILIOCERIS near impressa, A Nepalese Leaf Beetle

I know about this beetle because the kind researcher who supplied me with the gorgeous Euglossa bees which I drew before Christmas, also sent me 3 beautiful little specimens of Lili.

lili photo

This little beetle had been the subject of his research into the biological control of invasive weeds that threaten natural areas here in Florida, and it seems that this particular species of Lilioceris feeds only on air potatoes.

There are other Lilis who are partial to peoples lily bulbs, but they are the different, Lilioceris Lilii, very similar looking but with a red thorax. This is from Florida Invasives.org Newsletter published by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which also has some other very interesting info about invasive species.

“Air potato
In 2008, the host range testing of Lilioceris sp., a leaf beetle discovered in Nepal as a candidate biocontrol agent for air potato (Dioscorea bulbifera), was completed. This research, which began in 2005 by the USDA-ARS, demonstrated the beetle’s host range is exceptionally narrow. It can develop only on air potato.
This research also showed that a single beetle can consume, on average, almost three square meters of leaves during its life (almost one square meter during its larval development).
Taxonomists have been unable to give the beetle a name other than Lilioceris near
impressa, but research is underway to identify or describe the species. This beetle has just been petitioned to the USDA-APHIS (TAG) for review, the first step in obtaining permission from the USDA-APHIS for its release in Florida . “

So perhaps it will be good news for the native plants that are being strangled by the air potato. I know there is always much justifiable concern these days about introducing any alien species but I am sure that rigorous testing has been done, and maybe here it is a case of “set a thief to catch a thief. “

Lili from Katmandu

I don’t think I have ever drawn a beetle before, so needed some sketches and my best magnifying glass. Lili’s feet are incredible.
The legs end in two rounded slightly hairy pads, from the centre of which springs a long curved toe which has two tiny claws on the end.
The carapace is russet orange with a pitted surface, not really spots as such, thorax and head all black.

sketch sm

Thinking about the pose and leg position….

 

.sketch 3
Almost there…..

sketch 4

So, this is an imaginative drawing of “Lili”, Lilioceris near impressa, on a very small Air Potato Leaf, Dioscorea bulbifera, contemplating her extensive playground and the prospect of an endless feast of Florida Air Potatoes.

my lili sm

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP image 12 x 10”

** update 25th Jan .. Lili has a tentative go ahead..

The petition to release the beetle has been approved by the Technical Advisory Group for Biological Control of Weeds with the condition that it be identified or described as a new species.

The study to do this is ongoing by scientists at the Smithsonian. After the study is done, an Environmental Assessment has to be written, then publication of the proposed release, followed by a public comment period. Perhaps the release will be 2011. ….hope for the beleaguered hammocks of Florida soon.

Big Leaf, Tiny Wasp’s Nest.

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I have had this big loquat leaf on my table for a couple months now.
I found it while watching bees who were busy on the loquat flowers and wondered why a wasp would start a nest in such a precarious place as the exposed surface of a leaf.

Presumably the wasp felt the same and after making only 6 exquisite cells, abandoned this one for a more secure location. It was also strange that the same day I discovered a paper wasp’s nest neatly tucked under the concrete balustrade of our terrace.

The wasps are still there and are quite beautiful, slender and delicate. I hope to paint one very soon. At the moment the weather is icy so they have formed a huddle on top of the nest. I wonder if they will survive. I wonder if I will survive. Florida apartments are not built for cold weather.

Paper wasp nest cells on Loquat Leaf:

paper wasp nest

Pencil Drawing on cartridge paper 12”

The leaf is about 10 inches long. The leaf had dried out and curled in on itself, hiding those nice serrated edges .