This is the drawing I did today of a dying bee my daughter Isadora found on the way to the park. She is quite passionate about bees, all insects and animals really, and she tenderly scooped it up from the sidewalk intent in saving it.
As the kids played at the playground I decided to sketch it. This was a very different approach to creating for me, normally I am so immersed in my inner landscape when I paint but this time the focus was external and required an unaccustomed discipline. It sat docile on my notebook while I peered at it with close fascination. I nudged it ever so gently with my pencil to line it up straight and it pulled its legs in, so that's how I drew it, exactly as I saw it. It was a very moving experience to observe it so close at the end of its life. I was continually startled by its beauty, discovering every tiny part for the first time. I don't think I had ever had such a close examination of a bee before, never fully took one in as more than a concept of "bee" in the general, this was the first time this marvelous insect became "bee" in the particular.
