I love bees and have been painting them for a while, I try to adapt my style, I try to make my paintings the best they can be. However I also get tired, lose concentration and rush things. I can get in a muddle and can't figure out where to go next and often ruin a piece . So be kind to yourself, paint when you are feeling in the right mood and always stop when you are tired, then return refreshed the next day I am only using a few colours, indian yellow, cerulean blue, paynes grey and a red brown, to darken the yellow. I paint in the shadows, the veins the lighter parts I leave white, ( or in watercolour I leave the white of the paper. Go careful paint what you see

Then I do what I started doing a few years ago now, I use clear varnish, the type used on wood to create a translucent wing. This has nothing to do with watercolour and is my own invention, you can miss this part out if you'd like or play around with your own ideas. But this one is what I do. So where was I? Oh yes bees, they are returning to Devon, buzzing happily around the garden and I love to paint them. Here in Devon, in fact I think most of the UK has had some lovely Spring sunshine, enabling us to get out and about , watch the earth begin really getting into it's Spring. Bees are buzzing everywhere, we headed for Rosemoor the RHS garden near us to take in the Spring flowers. With this one I drew a simple outline and the used a few dots of masking fluid to mask out the highlights.