Location: United States
I paint and draw and my heart is really in it!
What is more amazing than the interaction between bees and flowers? Watching a field of flowers come alive with the hum of honey bees at work is almost magical. I have often watched this phenomenon wondering from where did these bees approach? But that is just me and my tendency to analyze everything (a tendency that sources a lot of family eye rolling).
Saint Frances once said of bees and flowers flowers, "The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as they were found." Perhaps these words were spoken realizing we should live our lives in harmony as do the flower and bee.
This flower bee interaction has inspired me to do a series of floral paintings. Ever present in my florals is the bee coming, going or interacting with a partner flower in some way demonstrating the harmony in their relationship. I hope you will enjoy viewing this series of paintings
The Departure is a painting of Pear blossoms with a bee leaving them as found, undamaged and beautiful and yet the bee has gathered that which it needs to sustain life.
Does the bee keeper wonder where his honey bees go all day? The Azaleas near home were in full bloom and there must have bee a hive of bees nearby. The blossoms were humming with bees most of the day and that activity gave me the idea for this painting. I had to do this piece remembering and imagining the bee’s shadow because they don’t remain still long enough for a studio pose.
The Pear Blossom was a second painting of pear blossoms in an orchard near my home in Umbria, Italy. In this piece there is a partial view of a bee interacting with blossoms, delicately taking only what is necessary to sustain life.
“Blossoms Past, Present and Yet to Come”
For me early morning walks are my time for quiet reflection about my life past, present and what is yet to come. During one of my walks a marshy plant known to locals in the Southeast, US as the Duck Potato captured my attention. I had been checking a few of these plants daily in search of new blossoms, delicate flowers and seed pods that had developed. This plant, like many, blooms in stages with older blossoms going to seed to make way for the new. And then of course there are the bees doing their part in all of this flower magic. The cycle of life occurs for the Duck Potato as it does for all living things and there is beauty and magic at each stage.
On one of many walks to view flowers and bees and their never ending ritual I was inspired once again to paint that magic. Honey bees were approaching a flower native to the Southeastern US called the Duck Potato. The Duck Potato has the scientific name, Sagittaria Lancifolia, but I kind of prefer Duck Potato. By whatever name the flower is called it is beautiful and bees come to it readily.
“The Lavender and the Bumblebee”
Day by day I watched the lavender blossom by our home in Italy. One day as it reached its peak and the colors were intense the bumblebees seemed to be everywhere. The hum of bees, deep purples and blues of the blossoms and the earth tones of the clay soil where the Lavender grows inspired this painting.
“The Departure”
“The Shadow of the Bee”
“The Pear Blossom”
“The Approach”
