From photos...... to an idea...... to finished a painting....

In our house we are well and truly into summer holiday mode, my kids are growing fast and both at high school ,so for us summer means late nights and even later mornings. Trips to meet friends, lifts into town and beach days. So my schedule has been turned upside down . I have to fit my painting around family life.So with all that in mind as well as ideas swirling this week I embarked on a larger painting I could work on in stages, days of work went into in and it could be left in between. 

In our village there is a bench and next to it a large lavender plant, sitting there last week it was covered in bees, I took several photos

 

 

Now I had to choose my favourites and put them into an order that made visual sense ( to me a least) . I wanted different bees in different poses. I printed all the photos off and and cut them so I could lay them next to each other , move them around until I was happy. I wasn't aware I was following any hard and fast rules on composition, but I did know  I wanted .

Once I was happy with them I took out a larger piece of paper A2 I think and started to sketch them , remember you are in charge you can put them where you want

 

 

Now I can start to paint. I painted left to right across the page so I didn't smudge my work , and tried to let each bee shine.

 

 

one down six more to go, and that is how it went for the next few days , working on my bees, listening to the radio, putting paints down to pick up one child or drop off another. Not a bad way to while away the summer holidays.

 

 

I wanted to keep the lavender loose , try to show how intently each bee seemed to be working on each flower. I left the bees on my work bench and studied them carefully there seems to be at least two kinds of bee in the painting .

 

I finally finished the bees today after 4 days work, ( very unusual for me) .

At the end of next week we are off to Anglesey where I shall hopefully do exactly the opposite, quick on the spot sketches.

Try to fit your painting to match your mood and timescale, that way it works with you not against you, and make sure it is always fun x