Silent Auction Bee Box | Florida State Beekeepers Association

Bee Box Concept, the right side of the box

Digitally Conceptualized…!

The Concept

As you know I currently love to do my conceptualizing process digitally… I honestly have a lot of fun mocking up my ideas, being able to quickly shift around the pixels and changing as I go, I simply just enjoy it as part of what I do…
Anyway, I will probably never give up on my “digital play time.”

Just a raw bee box that needs to be assembled still

The Beehive Box…!

Corina Pelloni’s Bare Beehive Box…

Just a raw bee box all assembled and ready for painting

My Bare Beehive Box…!

For this project I quickly did some side by side sketches to get out some of my thoughts quickly. My sketches are normally all done digitally, which I will then paint over them digitally once I’ve chosen the final sketch…

After I have sketched a few ideas out and step back to see which one I like, I do a little quick edit if need “bee” and start the digital paint over process. Similar to the underpainting stage when painting with oil paints, I suppose. My underpainting stage for this piece I did in straight color from the start. No value study stage or anything like that, as this is digital after all, so if I don’t like anything, usually there is some adjustment slider that can be altered to curve the artwork back to the correct hue, value, etc.. Another great reason to work out a little concept or mock-up digitally I would say…

Once I have a good understanding on how I want the piece to look and feel, and that the layout and color work is practically perfect. I start the transfer process.

Transferring the Digital Artwork

The way I did this one was to do a grid to quickly and accurately place my artwork on the physical bee box. I like this method because it makes it really quick for the most part, especially after spending a bunch of time working the concept originally, It’s kinda a little break, but still allows me to exercise the hand, you know..? Plus, for me, when I do it this way, sense I’m really not focusing on much of the drawing skills this time around, it let’s me take a step back and work out some design details as I fill in the grid.

Transferring digital artwork onto bee box

Adding Some PAINT!!

Okay, so this was a rough one.. Why you ask? Well honestly, I never painted a semi mural type piece that I new was going to be one: a functional piece object, and two: was going to be slammed in the Florida elements.. Further more, I am an oil painter and up till the research of this project, I thought the only paint capable would have needed to be acrylics…

Anyway, that is where I began…. ACRYLICS!!

First off I would like to give much credit to those out there that are phenomenal painters in acrylic. I honestly have no clue how you do it..! My hat is tipped at your abilities. I now know, I in no way have the ability (currently or in the for seen future) to work in acrylic.. And even when I think back on this project, my first question that I ask myself is, “and people think oils are hard….??” Anyway… You get my point.

Okay, so I originally started off trying to use acrylics, I borrowed some of Corina’s paints from her studio and started mixing the most obvious and easiest way to start, the blue cloudy background..

Side note: Corina painted a bee box as well and is really good with acrylics and she did the research to find the best brand with the best UV resistant pigments specifically for this project. So, I would like to thank her for her research and paint… Thanks Corina..! Definitely heck her out when you can for sure..!

:: shrugs shoulders, I don’t know, I just don’t get acrylic paint, it doesn’t listen to me at all clearly ::

Still no clue by the way…

Moving on then, right…

I mix up the color to a “T,” to make a very length learning curve story here much shorter, guess what I learned; there is clearly no amount or type of acrylic medium out there that will extend the drying time enough for me to work.. Not currently anyhow, or not currently for my painting process. Yeah, crazy, I know. I felt like I was painting with a tacky stick substance for hrs and hrs and still never got my background established on a single side of the box.

So, I am like in a panic at this point.. Thinking, okay so I have to use acrylics apparently, you know, to produce a product that fits in some weather proofing standard..

No, actually..

I spoke with a local “Mom & Pops” Art Supply Shop that is well credentialed around here, and the owner told me, “You can use oil paint with an alkyd based medium”

Huh, what…! Like, okay… I’m am so there already. On board totally, to say the least..

:: wipes brow ::

I mean, before this I was honestly thinking, “I am done for..!” I crawled all over the GOOGLE Machine looking for any “yellow brick road” to show me the way, I couldn’t seem to find anything on oil paint for outside mural use.. Probably just me, I was sweating… Well not anymore!

The story kinda ends here really, cause well, I love painting in oils so that’s what I did.. YES…!