Thistle and bumble bee

There are a lot of different bumble bees, so it is no surprise that I wanted to paint another one. This one did not have any problem with me taking reference pictures, as long as I did not disturb her work.
The bumble bees don't all look the same, this one is clearly a different one compared to the first one I painted, but there are at least two species that have a black body and a brown bottom. You have to be really close to see the differences and I did not do that.
So I cannot tell which bumble bee this is, only that it was black with a brown bottom.

After that first thistle with bumble bee, I wanted more and when we were walking another signposted walk in the 'Lingebos' area, I made more reference pictures of insects feeding on the nectar of the flowers. Not all my pictures were good enough for reference, but combining them may result in some nice paintings.

My husband, who is a teacher for 4 to 6 year old children asked me to make a watercolour for his classroom, so I will be working on some more flower-and-insect paintings in the next weeks. Of course a painting in a classroom for small children needs more contrast in the chosen colours so I am adapting my style a little bit to achieve that.
This will be a nice challenge for me in the next weeks.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability of the painting can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Thistle flower

Last weekend we went for a walk again, this time in a recreation area with some woodland called 'Het Lingebos'. Of course we did walk a signposted walk in the woodland area and we enjoyed it very much. We want to return to that area in other seasons as well.
The area is very green in this time of the year, especially after the rains we had recently.
As the area is very watery - the river Linge is flowing there - I have made reference pictures of waterways, ponds etcetera. These are for later use.

There were some thistles and I really like these plants for their colours. The violet of the flowers is also present in the shades of green that can be found in the stems and leaves.
This thistle had a visitor who was not at all disturbed by my presence.

Of course I could have painted only the flower, but I wanted to set myself a challenge and painted the bumble bee as well. The bumble bees seem to be everywhere now, but maybe they just are very happy in our garden. There is a nest close to our house as well. That is a good sign, as insects have been declining in numbers over the past decades.

The information about the paper and paints I have used and about the size and availability of the painting can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com