Bee Careful!

If you can’t be good, bee careful! The dangers of sketching outdoors for people who are allergic to insect bites. 

Getting sorted to go out sketching, I popped on some insect repellent arms, legs, shoulders and headed out. Remembered my hat, packed a foam cushion to sit on and feeling very smug, I headed out. My motif was an allotment with sheds and some very old cherry trees where my daughter used to eat more cherries than she picked! Sitting comfortably on my cushion, I got started sketching with some new equipment; more about that later. 

Let’s just say when God was giving out booty he was very generous, obviously some insect found my bum irresistible and I felt the most excruciating pain shooting into the top of my left buttock, a deep burning sensation and then another sting. I was torn between going home or carrying on ...... carrying on won but when I got up I felt that my behind had swollen to the size of two of JLO's and when I peeked in the mirror I couldn’t believe the massive, swollen red cheek that was staring back at me, four days later it was still swollen and burning. Lesson learned, insects (still don’t know which kind bee, wasp, spider?) can sting you through outerwear and your undies and leave you with a behind like a baboon. Maybe time for a sketching stool again! 

Now to some other new equipment, a Copic Multiliner and a da Vinci Cosmotop Spin dagger paintbrush. Thinking about trying to reduce waste played a great role in me deciding to choose this pen, you can refill it and replace or change the nibs which is great, similarly there are refills for my white Signo Uniball pen too which means less plastic and I'm not permanently throwing away a complete pen. Both I used in the sketch above, the Copic has great flow but the greatest revelation has been my dagger brush, which I can’t believe I've never tried before.

The shape of the dagger brush makes painting thin lines and broad washes a doddle and has reduced the amount of time I take for a sketch by about half. Seen them so often in Urban Sketch photos but really never thought to try one, now I can’t imagine being without. 

I can however imagine being without a huge, JLO behind so next time I'm out I'll have to spray underneath my undies or perhaps a scuba diving suit may be the answer! If you ever see a sketcher out in a neoprene suit they are probably just ''beeing careful''.