Bee Painting by Val Littlewood now at Bees in Art
The Leafcutter Bee by Val Littlewood
Bees in Art welcomes bee painter Val
Littlewood.
Val Littlewood
has recently completed a successful exhibition of
bee paintings at the Lost Garden of Heligan, Cornwall.
Val Littlewood
has been an artist, illustrator, designer and
lecturer for many years. Currently her exhibition
“Buzz, A Celebration of British Bees” is touring the
UK.
While always interested in natural history subjects,
the bee paintings came about more by accident than
design:
“ Two years ago while doing some gardening for my
father I found our old beehives, tucked away and no
longer in use. Such memories flooded in about the
delightful bees and their honey that I decided to paint
a honey bee for my Pencil and Leaf blog. From came a
commission from a bee enthusiast to paint a set of 16
bees. While researching and studying bees it was
impossible not to become very fond of these delightful
and hardworking little creatures. They are fine natural
architects, ingenious nest builders, solicitous mothers
and cooperative workers. Their stories are fascinating
yet they generally pursue their crucial work of
pollinating our crops and garden flowers unseen and
unappreciated. To help raise awareness of bees and the
need to protect them and their habitats I decided to
paint 25 of our British wild bees for a small
exhibition “Buzz, A celebration of British Bees” The
aim of Buzz is to help people understand more about
these wonderful friends of ours and appreciate their
very distinct personalities. Bees need us and we need
bees!
Val
Littlewood
Fairy Fights Bumblebee: Arthur Rackham @ Bees in Art
Fairy Fights Bumblebee by Arthur
Rackham
Following an early false start as a clerk, Rackham went
on to be one of the best known and loved book
illustrators of late Victorian and early 20th
Century Britain. Rackham's Victorian sensibility and
consummate draughtsmanship produced illustrations of
near hallucinatory scenes, which were full of danger
yet never dangerous and imbued with childlike
wonder.
In 1907 Rackham
illustrated the dreamlike Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Caroll, and fittingly went on in
1908 to illustrate Shakespeare's: A
Midsummer-Night's Dream. Widely regarded as one
of Rackham's masterpieces, A Midsummer-Night's Dream
features 40 coloured plates, including our fairy and
bumblebee battle. Populated by Shakespeare's
protagonists and other fairies and weird peoples, A
Midsummer-Night's Dream proved to be an ideal
vehicle for Rackham's
art and is now a much sought after book.
New in Bees in Art: Honeybee tryptich by Richard Lewington
