Gorst & Bombus by Anna Kirk Smith has been sold. Medium: acrylic on paper. Dimensions: 76 cm x 56 cm (30” x 22”).

New in Bees in Art, a six plate, hand coloured mezzotint engraving by Andrew Tyzack. A limited edition of 60 prints.

Bumblebees featured:

• Bombus pratorum
• Bombus lucorum
• Bombus pascuorum
• Bombus hortorum
• Bombus lapidarius
• Bombus terrestris

Six Bumblebee Queens, a mezzotint engraving by Andrew Tyzack

Bees in Art is delighted to welcome Mark Rowney. Mark produces artwork for Penguin Books, The BBC, New York Times and Time Magazine. He has also made leather products for the fashion designer Paul Smith. Pursuing his love for nature in contemporary art, he makes paintings and unique carved leather works featuring the birds and bees that he sees around him in the Durham Dales, where he lives and works.

“My influences are the bees that sting me, the midges that bite me and the birds that sing so sweetly.” Mark Rowney




Aerobombus (detail), acrylic on panel by Mark Rowney

Another etching by David Koster has been added to his collection. The etching features Bombus terrestris, Bombus lapidarius, a Brimstone butterfly, Cowslips and Early Spotted orchids. This etching has been both coloured in plate and hand coloured by David Koster.

Cowlsips & Early Spotted Orchids by David Koster

David Koster has supplied Bees in Art with two new hand coloured etchings: a solitary bee and a bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius).

Hand coloured bee etchings by David Koster

The three postcards submitted by Andrew Tyzack to this year’s RCA Secret have been revealed and are available for viewing. Visit RCA Secret here.

RCA Secret 2009 Bombus hortorum by Andrew Tyzack

Richard Lewington has provided Bees in Art with open edition prints of a hornet, honeybees with swarm and bumblebees which can now be purchased. Richard lives and works in Oxfordshire, UK, and is one of Europe's foremost natural history illustrators. Among Richard's achievements are the illustrations for the 'Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland', which includes 1,700 immaculate paintings of British moths. A publication remarkable for presenting each moth in its natural posture as it is seen in the field, at rest with wings folded.

Latterly Richard has written and illustrated the ‘Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland’, which shows the detailed life-cycles of all the British butterflies, and with his artist brother Ian, who illustrated the birds, the ‘Guide to Garden Wildlife’, which includes 900 illustrations of 500 species, including the ‘big six’ British bumblebees, found in British gardens.

Bombus terrestris by Richard Lewington

Wiliam Neill is joining Bees in Art. William is an Outer Hebridean artist and paints the Scottish Isles’ bumblebees, including the rare Bombus distinguendus (The Great Yellow Bumblebee) and Bombus muscorum form agricolae (The Moss Carder Bee). Both of which inhabit the scarce grassland habitat widespread in the Hebrides: the machair.

Uist Bumblebees by William Neill

Anna Kirk Smith is joining Bees in Art. Her artwork inspired by bees and their habitats will be added to the Bees in Art collection shortly.

About her work she states:

"I am fascinated by change, be it tidal, erosive, temporal or spatial and the effects of the geology of a landscape upon its inhabitants. Life cycles, metamorphoses and the interaction between species, often marine, inform my work. Each environment has its own unique set of criteria, it is not just the physical landscape that you have to consider but the cultural, historical and biological influences that have all played their part in shaping what you see before you. Places are weighty with stories, and indeed one does not need to venture far to find intriguing themes and situations—you just need to look a little more attentively."

Anna Kirk Smith

Gorst and Bombus by Anna Kirk Smith

Bombus subterraneus
From the mezzotint engraving: ‘British Bumblebees: Extinct and Extant’ by Andrew Tyzack

The Short-Haired Bumblebee (Bombus subterraneus) was declared extinct in Britain in 2000. Once widespread, the techniques of modern farming decimated its favoured habitat of uncultivated grassland. Now a partnership between the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Hymettus, Natural England and the RSPB is promoting Agri-environmental schemes to provide ideal habit for bumblebees in the Dungeness area of Kent. Fortunately Bombus subterraneus was taken to New Zealand 100 years ago to pollinate clover there and has since thrived. In the spring of 2010 Bombus subterraneus queens from this New Zealand population will be re-introduced to the Dungeness area where it is hoped, under the Agri-environmental scheme, that farmland seeded with mixed wild flowers and grasses will help the queens to establish new, viable populations.