Adding Bees to your nature journal…
02.05.2020
This week I had a little art session planned on drawing wildlife….however…I then got distracted by bees! When I was researching bees for the Wednesday class I started doodling some in my note book. I was thinking about their patterns of flight and the lovely dances that bees do in the sky. So I thought it might be nice to include it here as a Saturday nature journal challenge.
Sometimes it’s nice just to doodle. I often have little scribbles and notes throughout my journals. The zigzag lines on the page represent the buzzing noises. I kept to black, yellow and orange colours to represent the bees. I used a series of images I found on google as inspiration.
You will notice that once I had drawn them I added notes. As I was just playing around I didn’t add any technical terminology. I just kept it simple to what I noticed; the wings being positioned higher up the body than I had imagined, the little hooks on the end of each foot, the fact that when you look at bees they are often more of an orangey colour than the yellow we think of (yes orangey is my very own word!).
The point is – it’s fun and liberating not to be perfect and to doodle and learn. It inspired some reasearch questions to think about in more detail:
These might in turn inspire one of my future creative writing classes. I also thought it might be fun to get out some paint and create some bees using printing with sponges to get the fluffy shapes of the body. I might do this as a future art challenge.
So here is your art challenge for this week:
Task: Create a journal page with doodles of something that you couldn’t normally get close to and that inspires you. It could be bees, or another insect that you are intrigued about. Don’t be too precious about your style, just relax and have fun, see what you learn. If you haven’t got an outdoor space, or haven’t found your chosen thing use your imagination and then use google images to check the facts. If you are drawing bees the links on last Wednesday’s class have some good images for inspiration. Don’t forget to send me your results!
Thanks for visiting the Saturday Art Challenge. I have some lovely things planned for next week to welcome the month of May. The focus will be Hawthorn trees and the magical May Blossom! See you on Monday where I will be starting us off with some Hawthorn Haiku as the poems of the week.
See you then!
Best wishes,
Emma
Ooooo – I haven’t got the ones you mention, I will look into them. I’m slowly growing my own nature…
I love your book selection. The Way Marking book is one I look at often and have given to friends…
Great poem
You truly did captured the tranquility in the picture:)
👌👌
Hi Emma. All my images are about bees, I’m pretty sure! Feel free to check me out. 🙂
You’re kinda awesome.
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Hi James, thanks for the message. If you want to email me some of your art of bees I will happily include it on a future blog post. Nice black and white photography on your blog btw!
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Hi Emma I love bees too! But the last few days I’ve also enjoyed all the flies buzzing around – especially the long leggy ones. Thanks for inspiring me to doodle some sketches of these, based on the photos I took of them. Sean
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Hi Sean, I think I had a hoverfly bee in the yard the other day. I put a photo on the blog bee session that I think might actually be a hoverfly …it’s the one on sea holly type flowers – very yellow with different shaped eyes!? Some of the flies are very beautiful colours. I visited your local woods – they were spellbinding and full of little clouds of insects that look like fairies hovering!
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It’s defo a hoverfly (big eyes, short antennae) but does look remarkably like a bee or wasp. I think it could be an unusual one called Volucella inanis, whose larvae are scavengers in wasps’ nests. Is it OK if I check this out by sharing the photo online?
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Of course! My sister took it she lives near Winchester. She will be thrilled x
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