For the last two years, Geoff and I have been maintaining at least two hives of honey bees on our property in Texas. Now, while this post may not exclusively be about making art, there are some ways that bees can inspire us to create!
Yesterday we spent the day at the first annual, day-long beekeeping conference hosted by both the Trinity Valley Beekeeping association, and the Metro Beekepers association, of which we are members.
It was so great to see the various topics begin covered, including pest management, different styles of hives, and the research behind GMOs and what we will only find out over time.
Meanwhile, bees are responsible for so many things that we just take for granted in life. Pollinating flowers, including flowers that make us food, medicinal products from the hive, like propolis and collected bee pollen. Some people even have used bee stings to help with autoimmune diseases and pain. The painting in our featured image is an oil painting, inspired by a bee that had landed on a flower. The background was changed, but I am happy with the results! This painting actually was started in the summer of 2017. But I set it aside for a while, because I was not quite sure where to go next. As part of a challenge from my online artist collective, we all picked up where we left off on some type of project. So, I picked this one up, and I could not be happier that I finished it!
More products of the hive for artists include honey- to feed us, of course- but also wax. Wax is pretty precious to the hive, as it is the housing for the larvae, for their honey stores (carbohydrate source for the bees), and also for their pollen that gets turned into bee-bread and is their protein source.
I have never tried it myself, but encaustic painting has gained amazing popularity over the last several years. It is the use of wax as a painting medium to make some really fantastic, beautiful images. Now, when I get wax out of my hive, it ranges in color from being very very light yellow if it is newly drawn honey comb, all the way to a darker yellow, which comes from comb that has been in the hive for a while longer. The lighter the wax, the more control the encaustic artist has over the transparency of their images, so the lighter the wax, the more desirable the wax! Here is a great video that shows how encaustics can be made.
Darker shades of wax can be useful to the crafter in making soaps, or candles, and in many different other applications. Plus it smells so great! So, why not comment below on how bees have benefitted you in your art making?