This one’s for the bees…
As most of you know, a lot of my inspiration comes from nature and the garden. That is definitely true of a new small series I am working on related to pollinators.
I have been fascinated by bees most of my life, despite have an allergic reaction to stings as a kid. I still remember one day when I was playing down by the creek behind my dad’s house and a huge bumblebee landed on my neck. This was when I was allergic and I pretty much froze in fear. As I sat there with this guy wandering around on my neck, it started to tickle. His little feet just pattering away and his fuzzy body just meandering around. I calmed down and just sat by the creek letting this bee walk all over and felt like we became friends. I’m sure in my child’s mind there was some story running around about the magical girl who could talk to bees, or some such thing.
Skip to today, and our growing problem with the declining bee population. We have a Korean Bee tree in our back yard that has seen better days and will need to be replaced soon. I am hoping to get one more summer out of it, but those pesky lantern flies love it. It blooms at the end of the summer, giving the bees one last source for stocking up for the colder months. And boy do they! When you stand under the tree while it is in bloom, it sounds like you are next to a highway with all of the bees buzzing around!
We also let our garlic chives go to full bloom at the end of the season, so we get a swarm of bees there as well. I think one day last fall I counted at least 10 different species of bees and pollinators hitting up the chive blossoms. And that has led me to my current small series of paintings for pollinators.
My collage work for the early layers is pulled from an apartment gardening book from the early 70s; beautiful yellowed paper with a grainy, pulpy feel to it.
I have started building up the background layers, using light, earthy tones and pulling in some honeycomb. This piece will become my County Collector piece for the Chester County Studio Tour coming up on May 19th and 20th. As I continue to build up layers and work on the foreground details, the garlic chive blossoms with begin to take center stage.
I’ll be sharing the finished piece soon and will include it and others from the series in my April Newsletter. Be sure to sign up below to stay in the loop and get more details about the studio tour as we get closer to the event.