The Insect Queen Painting

INSPIRATION for this painting is the obvious beauty and universal appeal of a bouquet of garden flowers. I placed them in an antique stone bust for the contrast of the beauty of the hard, crumbling stone and the soft fragile, fragrant flowers. I felt this juxtaposition would provide the painting with an energetic push/pull. In addition I tried to capture the graceful, balletic movement and intriguing other-worldly design of the insects that live among them, I decided to include the insects while gardening in a bee-inhabited garden. The bees gave me the idea when they would land on me and deposit their overload of pollen on my overalls forming lovely golden patterns. I hope VIEWERS WILL FEEL enchanted with all the beautiful, disparate images vying for their attention in this harmonious setting. I hope they will be delighted and have a giggle when they discover the fat green frog who jumped into the fish bowl. or the nesting cardinals. Perhaps they will agree with me that there should be harmony between nature and humankind. I hope they stop and buy the painting, and then, I hope it reminds them every day to stop and smell the roses. SHOPTALK: It was my pleasure to pull out my smallest brushes (size 00 and 0 ) to render the multiple details of the flowers and insects. I applied acrylic paint on fine grain stretched linen because linen is so conducive to drawing intricate images. I slowed down the drying time with a retardant so I could work traditionally wet on wet when drawing and shading and utilized it’s slow drying time when applying layers of glazes. The image continues on to the edges of the canvas, so it can be hung without a frame if desired.