How Many Bees Are Enough?

'Feed the Bees'         9x12         pastel       ©Karen Margulis
available $165

I admit it. It is easy to get carried away. When something is fun and it works it is tempting to keep doing it. But then there is a risk of overdoing it. I went a bit crazy with my bees today! They are so much fun to put into a painting and I really wanted to capture the feeling of bees buzzing all around a mound of flowers. If one bee is good then shouldn't four bees be better?

When the painting was finished I showed it to my husband. I was happy with the colors and the underpainting and the little bees. But he wasn't as enthusiastic!  "Look at the bees....they are all flying in the same direction" he said. Hmmmm I took a closer look and had to agree but it was worse than that. The four bees were spaces almost in a perfect rectangle. They were too similar in spacing, size and direction. I had not noticed this but it is something that happens all of the time. Our brains create order but order is boring!

Before removing the extra bee

I put my finger up to cover the lower right bee and it was a subtle but welcome change. (try it) It was easy to brush this little bee out of the painting and repaint the pink flower. Now I had a staggered and unequal number of bees. It was much more pleasing even though it was such a small change.

So how many bees are enough? It is up to the artists but as I discovered odd numbers are more pleasing. And be careful of using too much of a good thing!

My watercolor underpainting done with Cretacolor Aqua Briques