Realism
This is a buff-tailed bumblebee, and the white tip is how you tell. Most bee designs give the tail a yellow band because that is what people picture, but the bumblebees out in the hedgerows here finish white, so that is what I drew. It is a small thing and most people will never notice it. The ones who keep bees notice straight away.
There is no outline anywhere in the piece. The whole body is held together by shading and by how densely the pigment is packed, which is why the edge of the fur stays soft instead of stopping at a line. Under the bee I put a loose stipple shadow, heavier at the legs and thinning out towards the edges, with a little warm ochre for bounced light. That shadow is what lifts it off the skin. Without it a bee this size sits flat and reads as a sticker.
The wings are worked so the skin tone shows through them. The veins are picked out in a light stroke over the top rather than drawn in black, because a black-lined wing on a piece this small closes up as it heals.
One sitting, two and a half hours. Photographed straight after the session, so the skin is still red and shining. The black-and-grey plants underneath are older work and not mine.
