Sustained Investigation #14

bees on a bush

7''x9''

colored pencil, magazine pieces, watercolor on drawing paper

Franklin's bees are endangered due to habitat destruction and farming pesticides. One of their favorite plants is a lupine, which I have here. I decided to have one lupine surrounded by a fading background to represent their habitat fading into nothing. I haven't done any insects for my sustained investigation and I thought this would be a good way to switch it up. I think bees are fascinating animals and they're not an animal that people really focus on when they talk about endangered species.

I used PC1009 Dahlia Purple, PC932 Violet, PC929 Pink, PC945 Sienna Brown, PC914 Cream, and PC909 Grass Green for the plant. I also used watercolor (not a name brand) and then cut out letters from magazines. I used the colored pencils first to make the lupine and the bees and I really tried to focus on burnishing to make the flower texture stand out more. Next, I watered down some watercolors and added that to the background, making sure it was fading slowly into black. While I waited for it to dry, I cut out letters for the 'save the bees'. Originally, I was going to have a colored lupine surrounded by wilted gray lupines, but I thought that was too similar to some of my other pieces I've done before. I wish I had watercolor paper, then it wouldn't have come out so wrinkled and the color could actually sink in.