About

Meet the (not cranky) Artist

A cheerful person wearing a white gardening hat taking a photograph of lupins in the garden
Me with my camera in the lupin patch

Hi! I’m Christelinda.

I’m a gardener who loves creating watercolour art, photographic prints and greeting cards inspired by nature’s beauty and its hidden surprises. I love how art can spark interest in a new topic and encourage people to get outdoors and explore!

I primarily use photography, watercolour painting and photo-editing software to create my art. But, I also like to sketch in my nature journal, and recently I’ve begun to experiment with vector art.

I love to share art

As a kid, I made greeting cards to give to family and friends. Birthdays, Christmas, thank you, thinking of you… name the occasion, and I had a card ready! Seeing someone smile after receiving one of my handmade cards was one of the best things ever! It was a wonderful feeling, knowing that my art had helped to brighten someone’s day.

Cranky Bee Art was born out of this love of sharing art as well as the need to find a way to generate funds (aka $) to support my post-secondary education! You can read more about the story in the Very First Cranky Bee Art blog article.

I love to learn

Every day is a new adventure and I’m always excited to learn something new. In case you’re wondering about the need for funds I mentioned above, I’m a full-time university student majoring in biology, with a strong interest in healthcare research. I’m entering my third year of studies this fall. My studies are progressing well and I’m looking forward to a fresh semester!

Piano is also really important to me – I’ve been playing for as long as I can remember. I love to challenge myself by learning and polishing new pieces.

Why “Cranky Bee”?

People often ask me, “why cranky bees?”. Bees have always represented some of my core values: they’re hardworking, enthusiastic, and strong team players. When I discovered similar bee-themed blogs and websites, most of them used variations of happy bees or cute bees in their branding. I wanted something memorable, something unique. And I loved the irony of having a website name including one of the traits least associated with my personality.

I am not a cranky bee!

The cranky part of Cranky Bee Art is definitely not me! My family would tell you that I am probably one of the least cranky people around. However, in the spirit of our website mascot, Cranky Bee, here’s my list of things that make me cranky:

  • Slugs in the garden
  • Dead plants
  • Creatures digging up potatoes
  • Cat hair in my food. Eww!!
  • Having a piece of music stop suddenly in the middle of a nice section

I hope you enjoy the website and find some interesting articles read, and maybe see a piece of art that calls your name! If you’re new to this site or just want to explore, our gallery is a great place to start!

Meet Cranky Bee

Cranky Bee

Cranky Bee is…well, cranky that she was selected as our mascot, but here she is. She can be found buzzing around in the garden, or hunkering down in her hive, grumbling about the weather, flowers, and just about anything.

Here are some things that make her cranky:

Loud, happy gardeners
People trying to take her picture
Happy bees
Bananas
Sunny days
Rainy days
Wet antennae

If you want to know more about Cranky Bee, she recently penned a blog article called “Cranky Bee Speaks!”.

And, if you want to learn more about how to stay safe around cranky, aggressive bees in your garden, we have created a great infographic for you!

About Zazzle

Cranky Bee Art proudly sells products through a print-on-demand service called Zazzle. Zazzle is unique in that it provides opportunities for you to upload designs and customize products, even those created by someone else. For example, did you find a T-shirt design that you absolutely LOVE, but you also want to see how it might look on a mousepad? With Zazzle, you can do that. You can learn more about how to do this in our blog post on Zazzle’s customization opportunities.

We chose Zazzle because of its reliability, quality products, and flexibility and we’re confident that you’ll find something that you’ll love here. However, if you have any issues, Zazzle does have extensive customer support resources available online or you can let us know if there are any issues through our contact form.