watercolour – Page 3 – Pencil and Leaf

First February Garden Sketches

By Val Littlewood February 9, 2013 January 4, 2020 Uncategorized

This week I have been thinking about my up and coming Workshops and preparing some ideas and samples. I will be at Barnesdale Gardens on Sunday 17th Feb to advertise the Illustrated Garden workshops and I am putting together some materials, (while still getting in the daily practice). Sometimes a plan is nice to start with. There are a million different ways of doing it. I quite like to play with perspective so here is a rough sketch of the back garden as it was in January. I am thinking I should have made it snowy.

And some small images for a series of “What I saw in the Garden in Feb” booklets which will have some text and some sort of cover.

Trees, sometimes dark sometimes light and flocks of chaffinches

Hellebores with spiky leaves and magnolia buds

The thrush eating a snail outside my window and aconites in a dark border

In the pond, signs of life. The curious backswimmers

They are only 3 x 8.25 inches and are a nice size to work on quite quickly. The next 7 will be about simpler recording techniques.

I made a couple of rough zigzag books which are another possibility and fun to do. More of these when they are finished.

Meanwhile today I noticed that despite some frost and snow flurries, things in the Garden are really beginning to grow! Vinca, first snowdrops, hydrangea shoots and of course many weeds.

How lovely! Next week is dedicated to prints..Yea!

Colour Sketches

By Val Littlewood November 18, 2012 January 3, 2020 Uncategorized

Not much on the drawing board this week but lots of plotting and planning, ideas and inspirations for the next couple of months. I have only managed three walks and was thinking mostly about the next workshop at Easton which is next Sunday 25th and our last meeting this year.

Three-Colour Landscapes We will be talking about limited palettes and how to create a simple painting from sketch. So I walked up to the Visitor Centre again and made this quick three colour note of the spinney.

This sketch is 5 x 8 inches.

It’s just 3 primaries winsor blue (green shade), winsor red and winsor yellow. I added some rooks who love to hang around the VC at this time of year, hopeful for scraps.

There is not much green around now so I was careful not to lay the blue over the yellow too much. It was very cold and the paint took a long time to dry which always means I worked over too soon and got duller colours. My numb fingers also dropped the brush onto it …sigh.
I do struggle with watercolour drying times for quick sketching.

I should have taken the gouache. I have made quite a few sketches and notes of this spinney, only because it’s a nice place to sit with a cup of tea. (see previous notes) but it makes a good subject for a simple painting.

These are from earlier in the summer when there were more leaves, a picnic and a strong wind.

This one from a couple of weeks ago.. less leaves.. and fisherman. Back home I took a slightly bigger sketchbook (10 x 7 inches) and made a small painting. Again with the same colours but the blue is w. blue (red shade), to get a nicer purple mix.
I did wait for the paint to dry this time.

Stage 1: first washes.

Stage 2: adding the darker tones.

I have just realised I forgot the rooks!

Its easy to forget how effective just these three colours can be.

——————————————————————

Later in the week, a few more limited palette notes (just 3 colours in each case) from the other few chilly walks this week.

Its a great exercise for playing with just a few colours and seeing what happens…. hopefully more next week.

Snail Shell Bees: Step 1

By Val Littlewood October 31, 2011 January 6, 2020 Uncategorized

I have nearly finished this painting and it has been fascinating to work on.

Although I had roughed it out I wasn’t really sure how it would turn out at all and I had been quite anxious about starting it. But as it developed, it took on a life of its own and that’s just how I like it.

The atmosphere and the “feel”of a piece is much more important to me than technical perfection, which is why I could never be a scientific illustrator. I sometimes think it must be like writing a novel or perhaps a short story. You become drawn in this other world that you are creating, sometimes more involved in this imaginary world, rather than in the one you are really living in.

My two bees became characters with a purpose and I have drawn them as well as I could. The bees this time are Osmia bicolour bees, both male and female. Today the male who will be sitting on a snail shell.

The first steps, ideas and roughs and research.

Some people ask me how long I need to do a painting and I guess I need at least a week of thinking and research time before I do anything. I really need to get to know my subject, understand how it lives, where it lives and a bit about its character.

This is sometimes the slowest and most agonising part of the work, because all you have is a piece of white paper and you have to start make all the decisions.
It could be anything, any size, any colour, any composition but you have to bring something to life, create something from the simple 2 dimensions of that piece of white paper.
You have to work a bit of magic. I sit and doodle I read and I make little thumbnails until I get something which seems to work. That’s what I usually send to a client and I have to tell them that the sketch is just a guide, because things will change and more importantly need to be able to change. It has to be my decision.
I would now rather make a painting that pleases me and have it rejected by a client than make something I am not happy with to please someone else.
So to recap, this was the thumbnail I sent to Carol and Peter.
The two Osmia bees, she is carrying a twig of some kind to cover her shell nest with. The male hanging about .. as male bees tend to, waiting for a mate.

This thumbnail was very small about A6 I guess, and done some time ago.

Looking at it again I re-draw and re-think it a bit. I am going to include something personal for Carol and Peter, just as I did for the B hypnorum commission.

It’s more meaningful for them and is an interesting addition to the painting. It’s bigger than any of my other bee paintings and it has two bees this time.
The image area is 12.5 x 14 .5 inches approx painted on a bigger size 19 x 22 inch size sheet of Fabriano Artistico HP 300.
It was originally going to be slightly larger still, but there is a “comfortable” size for these bees and I had to reduce it a bit. It depends what your aim is of course, but large bees can sometimes look a little unnerving!

This is now sketched out at the size I want to paint. I have changed the position of the male as I want him to look more at us.
The gaze and the engagement with the viewer is important. I have always felt that to walk out in the countryside is to be observed by many tiny creatures. I like that feeling and I am happy to slide away from strict scientific constraints to create an image I want. After all, this is my painting.

Starting to paint

My current set up is not ideal. We live in two rooms in total, a big bedsit I guess, so everything is rather cramped and the light is not good. But I have a lamp and a laptop stand to angle the board. It has to do for now and could be worse!

I am always nervous about the first layers of colour, worried about keeping the surface clean and worried that I will not be able to give the bee character and life.
But I need to get some colour down quickly, to get rid of some of the accusatory white paper!

I have put some pieces of paper round the image to try to keep the Fabriano clean.
I am not really a precise worker and do push the paint around quite a bit…splashes are frequent :).
I guess it is a bit of a cliché but I need to paint the eyes early on. I have to establish a rapport!

I build up with brush strokes that follow the shape of the hair or whatever it is I am painting. It seems to help to give it an underlying structure, even if it is obliterated later on.

I am jumping a couple of steps for fear this should be like “watching paint dry” .. on with the wings. I don’t put too much detail in.

and then a tidy up. It’s mostly watercolour with some white gouache for the fine hairs. The hair on a bee has different qualities on different parts of its body. Slightly silkier under the thorax and slightly bristlier on the top.

This is the end of day one. So far so clean!

The Garden Bumble Bee and Honeysuckle..

By Val Littlewood October 14, 2011 January 6, 2020 Uncategorized

I have almost finished this commission.. and I really do like this one. It’s been a real pleasure to paint this Bombus hortorum, the Garden Bumble Bee. I am very fond of these bees and loved watching them clamber around Dad’s honeysuckle in the summer.
I have said before how fascinating it is to watch how they move, how they alight on the flowers, how they unfurl their extra long tongues and how they hold onto the sides of flowers with their feet.

I had been undecided about including that long tongue, but it is such a characteristic of this bee and after all she is approaching some delicious nectar filled flowers and this is very much how you would see her!!
This is quite a big painting.. well big for me.. Its about 14×15 inches. I just got rather carried away with the honeysuckle and I forgot to take more step by step photos…but, never mind, maybe next time.

For framing I would crop in, something more like this:

I tend to like off centre things and to have some nice white space. I work so hard to keep that space clean that I think I need to celebrate it :).

Back to the Drawing Board

By Val Littlewood September 6, 2011 December 29, 2019 Uncategorized

Saturday in Battersea was excellent. The sun shone and the English wines were heavenly. They were mostly sparkling wines supplied by Gifford Hall Wines from Suffolk, the Bolney Estate and Meopham Valley Vineyard. The Rosés were particularly beautiful, Gifford Hall’s was pale and pretty and a recent prestigious Waitrose award winner. Think “fruity but dry wine with overtones of strawberry, lemons and roses” All served with equally delicious English cheese and home made bread. We do some things very well in the UK! So thanks to Marco and Harriet of North South Wines for lending the space and a big thank you to Nathan for organising it all. On their site they have a lovely old photo of the shop from 1847.. I have to say that not much has changed except of course the inevitable irritable traffic warden. Broomwood Road in th 1800's I was also delighted to meet James Hammil from the fabulous “Hive” shop in nearby Northcote Road. My only regret is that I didn’t have longer to look around the shop. There were so many things I would have liked to buy. James and I may organise something bee related next year. Perfect location!
Meanwhile I have now finished the little B. hypnorum with the small addition of a beautiful weeping ash which makes it special for my client. The next one on the drawing board this week will be B hortorum and honeysuckle. But I have just heard that poor Dad has broken his hip, so progress might be slow!! 🙁

The Tree Bumble Bee, Bombus hypnorum busy in the spring garden.

Watercolour and pencil 10 x 10 inches.

Wild Damsons and “Flowers of the Mind”

By Val Littlewood August 26, 2011 January 6, 2020 Uncategorized

I went for a walk yesterday, between the showers and up behind the reservoir, along a seldom used track. I was really looking for some blackberries but despite the huge numbers of brambles lining every path, they were disappointingly small and scant.

Then I came to a dark shady patch where two trees, taller than the hawthorns and sloes, meet overhead.

The ground beneath was littered with the small dark fruit of a wild plum. They are beautiful, velvety blue black to crimson, some with a powder blue bloom and some split open, revealing that liquid greeny yellow interior.
They are also deliciously sweet. I ate a few. They were warm from the sun. I

remembered happy days of eating my way round Leu Gardens, then filled my pockets and walked back, feeling the crushed fruit slowly seeping through to my skin.

Here is a quote from Katherine Mansfield which sums up where I found my damsons, and where I, too, like my mind to be.

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”

— Katherine Mansfield

A solitary fruit on a twig, the drought curled leaves are stiff, already autumnal tattered and dry.

Six little fruit which survived the pocket intact. Just beautiful..:)

The Black Queen, The Beautiful Bombus ruderatus from Lincs

By Val Littlewood May 22, 2011 January 9, 2020 Uncategorized

Sometimes the coincidences that life throws up are both spooky and delightful, rather as if some good fairy has taken charge of things for a change.
A while ago now I was reading the Bwars forum messages which come regularly into my inbox and noticed a message from Leslie in South Lincs. I don’t often see questions from my part of the Uk so I was interested in her report of her B ruderatus sightings.

That afternoon, I went out into the garden with my camera and there drifting slowly from one clump of Yellow Archangel (Lamium galeobdolon) to another was a large velvet black bee.
Very big and very black. My bee knowledge is still slight but I knew it was a Bombus and not an Anthophora.
When I looked again at the books it could only really be Bombus ruderatus. A very odd occurrence as only that morning I had been reading about them.

This is the dark form of the lovely ruderatus (var. harrissellus) which has, it seems, quite a few colour variations. She is carrying some yellow pollen and had a dusting of pollen on her head from the flowers but apart from that I could not see any other coloured hairs.

They don’t seem to be very common, but apparently have a bit of a liking for Lincolnshire. This is from the UK Biodiversity Action Plan site.

“Although this bumblebee was considered to be very common in southern England at the beginning of the 20th century, by the 1970s it was already considered a scarce but widespread species. The decline has continued since, with fewer than 10 confirmed post-1980 sites for this bee, mostly in East Anglia. There are no confirmed post-1960 records for Wales and no records for Scotland or Northern Ireland. This bee is widespread but declining in Europe.
In Great Britain this species is classified as Nationally Scarce.”

Buglife have a good “species management” sheet for more information here. and Bwars records have a distribution map here. If any other Lincolnshire readers see this bee, Alan Phillips ( norwegica blog) would like to know!

Being a long tongued bee it likes red clover which you really don’t see so much of these days. Another coincidence is that this beautiful long faced and long tongued bee was one of the hopefuls sent to New Zealand to pollinate the red clover crops in the 1960’s. Studies were made of their nesting habits in Lincoln .. but Lincoln, New Zealand not Lincs UK.

I have subsequently called in to see Leslie and to talk to her about her bees.
Her lovely garden was just full of them with bee houses/ nesting sites and bee flowers everywhere. She has been recording bees for many years and her records are fascinating.
Identifying this particular species is tricky because of the many different colour variations and its similarity to B hortorum to which it is related. I think I am going to try to make a chart.
I saw the black queen just once more before we moved and I think this is another bee I will have to add to the British bee set.

Some Osmia Sketches

By Val Littlewood April 27, 2011 January 9, 2020 Uncategorized

The weather is still beautiful, if colder now and I am reluctant to be indoors. I spent most of the day out cycling and walking by the water, and failing miserably to get any good bee photos.

But eventually I made myself sit down with a sketch book, paints, a pencil and my models, two Osmia rufa bees. One male and one female.
Despite my best efforts to rescue, revive and release the lost bees (seven today), some have died.
I found 3 papery little bodies when we moved in, curled up on the window ledges.
As sad as this is I have to be practical and can make some studies which all helps my knowledge and understanding. And it’s a chance to pay a little homage.

The males have long antennae and moustaches but are quite a bit smaller than the females.

Male and female Osmia rufa, casualties of .. well ….just of life… I guess.

Three days ago there were lots of males, now it seems just females are getting into the house.

I suppose they are looking for a nest site and have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the labyrinthine wall cavities.
I am trying to get back to some daily sketching after what seems like a long time.
Hopefully poco a poco, a little every day. 🙂

Bright Little Blue “Berry Bee” Osmia aglaia

By Val Littlewood April 4, 2011 January 10, 2020 Uncategorized

A thoughtful lady commissioned this little blue bee painting for her bee enthusiast partner. We had discussed what might be most relevant for the area of the USA where she lives and I knew he was keen on mason bees so the beautiful little Osmia aglaia came to mind.

It is the blue “Berry bee” and not only are they the most beautiful colour and very dainty, but I also have 4 little specimens here to help me. They had been sent to me last year by Dr Karen Strickler who is the Queen of “Bobs” (Blue Orchard Bees) in the USA.

See more about her here at Pollinator Paradise. Here I on my hand are three little female bees, shimmering blue/greens in the light and with the characteristic large heads. There is one smaller male on the left who is distinguished by size and his nice white moustache.

The Osmia aglaia is another member of the most charming Osmia family of bees, they are in turn members of the Megachile family of leafcutters..

Oh, and an interesting little fact is that “megachile” means “big jaws”, for cutting away at those leaves and carrying mud etc. I guess.
I know it is bad science to attribute human traits to insects but when you watch megachiles for a while, they seem particularly pert, very business like… and very very charming!

Apart from being gorgeous, these little bees are extraordinarily useful to us because they pollinate many fruit crops amongst them the cane “berry” fruits particularly in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. They may be metallic blue, green or rust/bronze in color and nest in tunnels in wood,about 3/8 – 1/4 inches in diameter.

Sometimes these will be old holes left by beetles or woodpeckers (a bit dangerous I think as woodpeckers are rather partial to a bee grub or two ) or just hollow woody twigs You will see them out and about as adults in the late spring, when the Rubus is in bloom… but only in the USA. (We do have our own very beautiful Osmia bees here in the UK just not quite so colourful).

Image of osmia aglaia from USAD Raspberry Page. Photo Credit Steve Werblow, Homestead Magazine

Osmia aglaia are particularly partial to raspberries and are becoming more and more important to berry growers as the honey bee population is in decline. Jim Cane from the Bee Lab at USDA Agricultural Research in Utah and Karen have been seeing how useful they might be to local raspberry farmers in Oregon.

Read more about the Oregon Berry Bee project, here. Do your best to encourage these sparkling little bees into your garden. Plant some delicious soft fruit to give the bees some pollen and then enjoy the produce they help to create for you. Keep in mind that they seal their nest tunnels with mud, so a mud source nearby is handy.

They will look for food close to their nesting sites so they need flower and water sources to be close to hand.. or rather wing! Foraging is a hard work and uses up lots of energy so they don’t tend to venture too far from home. See a recent article about native bee pollinators in the USA here from Goodfruit.com.

____________________________________________________________

Osmia aglaia. The Berry Bee, approaching Raspberry flower

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP … 9×9

I had an anxious nail biting wait of two weeks for the parcel to arrive in the USA. It’s sometimes hard, when you have spent a long time on a painting, to entrust it to the vagaries of the British and US postal services.
But eventually it arrived and I am so pleased that the little bee has found such a very appreciative home! I always tell my clients that if they are not happy they can return their bee to me!.. but they never do.
Somehow bees just creep into your heart somewhere.. sounds a bit soppy but it’s true…. 🙂

Two Lovely Bees for Liz; The Early Bumble Bee and the Grey Mining Bee.

By Val Littlewood November 24, 2010 January 11, 2020 Uncategorized

The last few weeks have been very busy and, with hardly any internet connection, very frustrating blogwise.
However in my makeshift studio at my father’s house, (rickety picnic table with clip light fixed to hoe handle) I could at least work on my two bee commissions.

It gives me great pleasure to work on commissions because they are a chance to make paintings which are very personal to your clients. We will discuss the whys and wherefores at some length and this collaborative approach means they will have a painting which is just for them and has a resonance and meaning beyond just the image.

So Liz and I had discussed which bee and why and decided on the Grey Mining Bee which is such a favourite with its beautiful black and white silky coat and secondly the lovely Early Bumble Bee with her smart red rump. There were several things which made these choices special to Liz.

She particularly wanted the ginkgo leaves to be included as she has a magnificent old ginkgo tree growing in her garden. So the leaves I drew are from her tree.
The hawthorn leaves were from the local hedgerow and the two little bees had been found near Lincoln, which was a strange coincidence because Liz once lived near there many years ago. I had written about the Grey Mining Bee Andrena cineraria before (see “The Glamorous Grey Mining Bee”)

Here is Liz’ bee hovering above a sprig of hawthorn, a favourite flower with this and many other early bees.

The Grey Mining Bee Andrena cineraria and Hawthorn.

Watercolour and pencil 9 x 9” I drew and wrote about handsome the Early Bumble Bee here “Bombus pratorum …and Mr. Sladen” and included Sladen’s poignant piece about the death of the queen. It’s a lovely piece of writing as is all the writing in his wonderful book about bumble bees, The Humble Bee’ It’s Life History and How To Domesticate It.

I now have the reprinted copy which also contains the facsimile of his first handmade bee book. It’s completely charming.

Here then is Liz’ Early Bumble Bee flying up through the ginkgo leaves which are catching a light spring breeze. Bees do not forage from ginkgo trees but Liz’ garden looked to be a haven for wild bees and I just know she will be seeing these pretty bees in the spring next year.

The Early Bumblebee Bombus pratorum and Ginkgo leaves.

Watercolour and pencil 9 x 9”. I am so delighted when people commission a bee. It’s not perhaps the most usual request but gives me hope that bees are getting a higher profile and winning a well deserved place in people’s hearts.
I am really looking forward to the day when bees outsell fluffy kittens…OK, I know… I may have to wait a while :).

There is more work to be done to popularise bees, their undoubted charm and tireless good works and I will be continuing that next year both in the UK and in the USA… But, for the next few weeks I will be somewhere completely different.

I will be seeing what is happening in New Orleans for a while! Bees ? I hope so. What else? Who knows. It will just be a voyage of discovery!

Tag: watercolour