Honeybee Part 2

Next, I added a second bee to the upper right to balance the subject. I chose another bee to continue my use of the bee shape. Notice how I continued the S curve that starts with the first bee. I want to move the viewers eye through the picture  and logically bees behave this way. I added the stamen to echo the shape of the wings. This suggested a tulip.

My next thought is how to suggest a tulip shape. I want to use diagonal lines to suggest the motion of bees.

I decide that the direction of the light is straight onto the picture  because I want to leave the bees wings white and the edges of the curled in petals will be lighter. I darken the value of the center of the flower to add depth.

Honeybee

For my first post, I'll paint a honeybee. I'm using 6"x6" square format so I'll place my subject in the lower left "sweet spot", roughly 2"x2" from the lower left corner.

Next, I drew a curving line from my bee connecting it with the sides of the paper.At this point, I'm thinking that I want the lines to harmonize with the curves of my subject; I want them to point to my subject and I want to intersect with the sides of the paper at different intervals. The top line intersects at 1 3/4"  and the bottom at 2 1/4".  In good art, we want repetition with variety. Now, I can see an idea starting to develop.