Sketching and Drawing Bees

Realistic sketch of a honey bee, graphite pencil.

It's time to sharpen those pencils for some brilliant bee drawings and paintings over the Spring and Summer months...in preparation of nature drawing workshops planned this year.

This bee sketch was done using a Mars Technico hb on standard watercolour paper.

Realistic sketch of a honey bee.

The garden is filling up with flowers and the bees have been busy collecting pollen. They bask in the sun on the green alkanet, which is a native wild flower, commonly known as a weed...but it isn't treated as a weed in this garden, as it is so highly regarded by the bees!

Plans are in place to start recording the variety of bees that visit this garden in Kent, in the South East of England and neighbouring London, Surrey and Sussex - already there seem to be more varieties than first expected, so some research will be necessary to give correct bee identification. The anatomical structure of the bee is important and quite complex but observing the bees and learning about their anatomy is a good way to start understanding the functions of the bee.

The drawing, above, is a honey bee - Apis mellifera. There are so many of them in the garden I think they might like a bee hive to take shelter in if it rains.

I wonder if they might also leave some honey...!

Please enquire for wildlife and nature drawing workshops.

British Wildlife Watercolours

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Traditional Bee Drawings

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