Piece of the week

The summer after I graduated, I started my first series on bees. I researched bees and was blown away by the amazing creatures that honey bees are, I'm not the only one either, through out history people have enjoyed bees' honey and marveled at the remarkable little creatures that they are.
The series I created was only the second or third time I'd attempted to create a series, a body of pieces that work and build together. The series wasn't very great as a series with mostly watercolors and a few pen and ink pieces, and ideas that were loosely connected by the theme of "Bees" but some of the individual pieces turned out pretty cool.

pen and ink
2009
Series: Bees
9x9in
photo by David Hawkinson

Ps something new will hopefully be coming to the blog this week!

Piece of the Week

Here we go for the second round of piece of the week. This piece has been shown on this blog before but it's been a while. It's part of a series I did a few years back called Bees, which was about honey bees.
Having a favorite piece of art is akin to having a favorite child but I really do love the way this piece turned out.

Direction
watercolor covered by transparent paper with pen and ink
2009
9x9 in
Series: Bees
photo by David Hawkinson

Buzz

Remember the series I did on Bees? We recently I've been giving those pieces a second look and I've decided to work on expanding that series. Because I've decided to reopen this series, I've been reading up on honey bees again and let me tell you, they are something. Bees don't usually get a lot of thought, but they are amazing, from the fact that they pollinate a large portion of the produce we eat, to the fact that they make their honeycomb in tessellating hexagons, bees are quite remarkable and I'm excited about continuing this series.

News Break

News Break

Starting Monday my series Bees will be on display. The series includes this, this & this piece.

When I researched bees I found the suggestion that a swarm of bees was more like an individual with the bees being the cells, very thought provoking. In this piece I drew all the components of the swarm: the queen, drones, and workers. The bees all make up the swarm or the hive and in a way it's like a puzzle, all the pieces are needed to make up the whole.

The Swarm
Watercolor and Pen and Ink
9X9in
2009
Series: Bees

In the story of Noah's ark it's commonly told that Noah sent birds to see if there was dry land. It's been suggested to me that it might really have bees Noah sent out and not birds.

The Promise
Watercolor
9X9in
2009
Series: Bees

In a bee hive worker bees keep everything going, they do just about everything. I read that some people think of a hive or a swarm of bees as an entity; like we are made up of various cells and organs, a swarm or hive is made up of bees. I was thinking of portraiture and how the people in them are usually important or at least like to think themselves so. The worker bees are very important to the hive and individual people are very important to their families or fiends, community, etc.

Bee Portrait
Pen and Ink
9X9in.
2009
Series: Bees