A Strong Little Bee (Happy HPUD!!!) + My April HP Progress :)

Happy Hive Power Up Day, everyone! :)
I've never really been active in this activity until March of this year. Since I decided to grow my account and avoid powering down as much as possible (I hope I could do that...), I also tried to challenge myself to increase my HP gradually.

And since it's the start of the month, I made this little painting to celebrate HPUD! Here it is!!!

I currently have around 1700 HP at the moment, and my goal is to get 2500 HP before the year ends. It's going to be challenging for me, but I'll do my best. I want to have that cute little bee badge. :)

Before I share my April HP progress, allow me to share some progress shots of this artwork I made earlier. I used poster paint on a 10 x 10 cm watercolor paper for this. Let's start!

I started by sketching how I want the bee to look and erased it lightly using a kneading eraser, so it won't be very messy.

I started with the background first because I want to have this certain effect, as if the bee is glowing. So, using a fan brush, I added some pink and yellow colors.

Once the background was dry, I colored the bee. I started with the base color of the main body, as well as its legs.

I then added a darker hue of yellow below, and a lighter one above, to create some shadow.

Next, I painted the rest of the body parts. I added a HIVE logo on its eyes. Now that all the base colors are done, it's time for detailing.

It's a tiny painting, so I had to concentrate and keep my hand as steady as possible. XD It's quite relaxing, though. Maybe because I had to focus on it, so it rid my mind of other things. :)

Finally, I did some highlights using a white pen. It looks so cute. Haha

I wrote the usual stuff: username, date and signature, then took out the masking tapes around it. Here are some more shots of the bee below along with a selfie! ^^

And that's it for my artwork. I hope you all enjoy it...

Now, let me share a bit about my HP progress last month. :)

When April started, my HP was a little below 1500 HP, and yesterday, it reached a little over 1700 HP. I gained more than 200 HP in one month. Part of it was the rewards I get from my posts, and a portion of it was through daily power-ups.

I never really thought about it at first, but I was encouraged by the PU Gang, especially @shiftrox, @coyotelation and @rimurutempest, who also do the same thing. :)

I also didn't know that we can actually monitor our daily power up using @hivebuzz. I just knew from their post yesterday. Check it out HERE.

They have this calendar that shows your daily power up. I mentioned earlier that I powered up every especially from the second week of last month.

However, there were some blank days on my calendar. It's because they record using UTC time. haha I have to be careful with that from now on, if I want to complete this quest. :)

I'll do my best to complete it this month... I'll continue to power up at least 1 HP from now on... but today is special, and I want to get the MAY badge, I powered up 10 HP. :)

How about you? Have you done your power up, yet?

That's all for this post. I hope you like my artwork! Let's all grow together! Have a good one and see you around! (^^,)/