Bombus terrestris · Fiurdelin · Finalist, Animals and Insects Art Challenge 2026, Ten Moir Gallery

A bumblebee is mostly fur, and fur has no edges. Every hard line I might have wanted to draw around the abdomen had to be replaced with hundreds of individual hair strokes instead, layered until the banding pattern showed through the pile rather than sitting on top of it. That was the drawing problem behind this illustration of Bombus terrestris, the buff-tailed bumblebee. In June 2026, it was named a Finalist in the Animals and Insects Art Challenge 2026 by Ten Moir Gallery.

In June 2026, Fiurdelin’s Bombus terrestris illustration was named a Finalist, placing among the top 15–20 entries, in the Animals and Insects Art Challenge 2026 by Ten Moir Gallery, an international online art competition with results emailed 18 June 2026.

Ten Moir Gallery —
A Monthly Circuit for Wildlife Art

Ten Moir Gallery runs a rolling calendar of themed online art challenges, and Animals and Insects invited work capturing wildlife at any scale, from a monarch wing to a beetle’s armour. Submissions closed 31 May 2026, with results emailed on 18 June and awards dispersed on 23 June. Finalists, drawn from the top 15 to 20 entries, receive a curated collection feature and a digital certificate.

The gallery’s own curatorial notes describe what separates a finalist from the rest of the field: clarity of concept, confidence of execution, and, for artists submitting a series, consistency without repetition. For an illustration built on hundreds of individual hair strokes, execution was the whole argument.

The Bombus terrestris illustration, framed · Fiurdelin

Bombus terrestris —
Drawing the Buff-Tailed Bumblebee

The buff-tailed bumblebee is one of Europe’s most familiar pollinators, which creates the same problem the swallowtail did in an earlier illustration: everyone already has a mental image of it, so a generic fuzzy yellow-and-black shape will not read as this species. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s species guide notes that queens carry a distinctly buff-coloured tail, while workers show only a faint hint of it against the near-white. Getting that gradation right, rather than flattening it to a single tone, was what made the illustration identifiable rather than merely bee-shaped.

“A bumblebee has no clean edges to draw. Every line I wanted to make had to become a hundred hair strokes instead.”

The two golden bands, one behind the head and one across the abdomen, sit inside dense pile rather than on smooth cuticle the way they would on a wasp. Working outward from the body’s underlying form first, then building the fur texture in layered passes, kept the banding legible without losing the softness that makes a bumblebee recognisable at a glance.

The Recognition —
Finalist, Top 15–20

Finalist Animals and Insects Art Challenge 2026
Ten Moir Gallery
Top 15–20 Entries · June 2026

Finalist Certificate · Animals and Insects Art Challenge 2026 · Ten Moir Gallery

The Ten Moir finalist placement joins a busy first half of 2026 on the exhibition circuit, alongside the Life Forms 2026 selection for a different Bombus study and the Honorable Mention at LightSpaceTime’s Animals exhibition. Each juried process asks a version of the same question of a scientific illustration: does it hold up as art on its own terms, beyond its accuracy. The consistent answer across these very different galleries is yes.

The Bombus terrestris illustration is available as a fine-art print in the botanical.art print shop, or as a digital download on Etsy for printing at home.
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