Bumblebee

I tried to take the lessons of that last painting and apply them to a different kind of subject. Flowers require either going all in on detail or finding some balance between detail and suggestion that, frankly, I still haven’t found. I don’t think this painting is very successful. Let’s put on the critical analysis hat.

What works? I think the bee looks good! The shape is right, the wings look good, and the mingling of blacks and yellows suggests “fuzzy” without picking out hairs. The backdrop works, with low detail brush-work suggesting a field of flowers out of focus. The juxtaposition of colors is lovely.

The flower does not work. My theory was that I shouldn’t be trying to push detail on the flower. And while I still believe that, my big, chunky brush work here makes it a smeared mess. The unopened flowers make a bundle of little grayish cylinders bristling over the stem, but they are barely readable here. I’ll need to study and practice more on these kinds of “packed detail” subjects and see if I can find a better balance for myself.