Tag Archives: local honey

Dibs on This Blossom, Too!

Posted April 28, 2016 by Kerry McFall   #blueberrybees  #oldbluerawhoney

A couple of weeks ago, I started to stroll past my blueberry bushes but stopped in my tracks.  It was barely mid-April, but- already they were in full bloom and COVERED with bees.  Inspiration struck and I had no choice but to pull out my paints and get busy.

painted sketch of bee on blueberry blossoms

“Dibs on This One, Too!”, mixed media by Kerry McFall, 8 x 10 prints $25

There’s nothing like the process of making art to make you pay attention: the tops of the pantaloon-leg blossoms are skyblue-pink-green-burgundy.  Gorgeous.  The blossoms are creamy and frilly, and filled with stamens and pistils and pollen, oh my!  The bees seemed drunk, the pollen sacks on their legs heavy with golden powder.  I snapped a few photos, and my favorite was this busy fella, head buried in one blossom and apparently calling dibs on the neighboring blossom by hanging on to it with one back leg.

Bees have had a hard time lately, but there are people paying attention and trying to help them survive and thrive, and making delicious honey, too.  For instance, in one of those serendipitous coincidences, just this morning I received an e-mail from a fellow artist endorsing a local honey producer, the folks at http://oldbluenaturalresources.com/.  I was not aware of them before, but their web pages are beautiful and quite amazing.  Talk about knowing where your food comes from:  they can tell you where, as in which meadow or mountainside, your honey came from, and whether your honey comes from primarily blackberry blossoms or poison oak (who knew that poison oak could be a great source of butter-scotchy-tasting honey?!)  They do Honey Tastings!  It must be like the “terroir” of  fine wine, with each geographic and botanical source lending its own special flavors…mmm.

On a smaller scale, a neighbor recently posted about her backyard hives in an article titled Bee Mysteries.

If you’re a bee or blossom fan, you might also like to take a look at another painting I did last year, “Apple Blossoms“.  The original is still available, email kmcfall@gallerynouveau.biz if you’d like to buy “Dibs” or “Apple Blossoms”!

Process

The background was created using tulle netting for the small honeycomb textured areas, and sponges.  I used watercolor paint, black and white ink, and gouache paint.