Bee Watercolour Tutorial - beginner to intermediate (Patreon)

Hi everyone,

Here is the Bee tutorial for you.

I’ve been busy painting little bees for you. It’s Autumn here in Australia which means Spring should be in the air for all of you who are in the northern hemisphere. So I thought some little bees would be appropriate for this time of the year.

I bought a new book last week at the recommendation of a patron...... thank you Tracy. It's called 'The Essence of Watercolour' by Hazel Soan. Hazel does beautiful loose free flowing paintings. I was reading it and her words kept making me nod in agreement.....yes.....yes…that’s what I think. She talks about the first wash being the freshest. She says, "The most appealing, vibrant passages of watercolour are those that are direct and immediate. Aim to achieve the most you can as soon as you can with the minimum of means."

She also says, "During a painting do not worry about details- they can be corrected- but concentrate on the washed blends and above all do not destroy a lovely passage of watercolor for the sake of likeness to the subject."

I’m always trying to strike a balance between allowing the watercolour to behave like watercolour but also having areas where there is detail for the eye to explore.

Which brings me to these bees.

These are painted with a fun loose wash to begin with. Then when that’s dry I paint over the top to add detail- but not too much detail because I don’t want to lose all of those beautiful underwashes. I used bigger brushes than I’d normally use to paint something this size so that I wouldn’t be tempted to put any more detail in. You’ll see that I painted a bit of the detail negatively as well. Negative painting means to paint around something rather than on it.

Have fun with it. I had a lovely time painting them so I hope you do too.

Louise

🐝

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My tutorials are designed to help you on your creative journey. Any painting you create from a tutorial where I use my own reference photo is for personal use only. They can't be sold or entered into an art competition. I write on the Supplies Lists where the photos come from. Permission is not given to paint any of my earlier paintings that are not tutorials because some of them are licensed. Also, a few of my earlier paintings were painted from photographs where I sought the permission of the photographer. The photographer gave me permission to use it, not others.

If I do a tutorial where I use another photographer's photo (eg from Pixabay or Unsplash) that is available for anyone throughout the world to download (copyright free) and use I’m happy for you to sell the paintings you create from the tutorial.

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Thank you!