Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 1

I've wanted to blog about my Buster the Bee watercolor and sculpture for quite some time. And here it is! My Buster pieces have been one of my favorites in my storybook line.

This is my watercolor with Buster the Bee delivering some honey tea with Oliver the Ant guiding him to Toby's turtle shell. Ever since I started making my storybook sculptures, I've wanted to make this watercolor into a sculpture. Last year I had a small art exhibit at a gallary inside of a local public library. I wanted to make this piece for last year's show. With lots of patience and determination, I got this piece done for the show. There are a lot of parts to this sculpture, so this will be the first installment in a four part series.

Here is my sculpture about midway into sculpting it. I love flowers and I was excited to make a field of flowers for Buster to buzz over. I got some books about flowers from the library to find a variety of flowers to sculpt.

The photo above shows some of the leaves and flowers for my piece.

And here are the meticulous wings for Buster. I painstakingly glued each piece of wire to form the wings. And needless to say it was with much trial and error. The following photo attests to the fact, that these wings were not made in a day or two.

A selection of trial and error wings, which I will not depart with. These wings are part of my "mistake/reject" collection. Am I a pack rat? Keeping my mistake pieces can be a helpful guide for the future. Although, if I'd make another bee sculpture, I would try to find a new way to make the wings. They were one of the hardest parts to make along with being the most delicate to handle.

And here's the final photo for part one. Buster is already flying (albeit wingless) amongst the flowers waiting to be painted. The next part of this series will feature some of the smaller details of my piece, such as the picinic basket and tea pot, Buster will be carrying to Toby's shell. Stay tuned, for part 2 of Buzzing Behind the Scenes.