Tuesday, October 23, 2007

real bee, fake bee


I was going to entitle this "Drawing from Death" because the topic is a dead bee I found a while ago and had been saving (for this?).  But that seemed a little too morbid.  However, I have realized in the past that drawing from "life" is usually the only way I can buckle down and try to do something realistically.  Otherwise things turn out all made up, goofy looking or accidentally cutesy.  I need to spend more time drawing from life and/or death.  I'm usually too impatient.

Back to dead bee: it's so incredibly lightweight, and so delicate.  I'm surprised it doesn't float.  The intricacies are almost shocking: unfortunately the photo doesn't do this bee justice. 

And I'm embarrassed to admit that I've dropped this bee quite a few times.  There even had to be some glue-based surgery.



So, I drew the dead bee and ended up using gouache, mica, etc. on top of the drawing. It has some texture because I tend towards chunky application of materials.  I'm going to incorporate this bee into a slightly bigger project I'm working on... to be cont.

image hosting by flickr.


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