Friday Face Off (FFO): Eurasian Jay

 Hello and welcome for Friday Face Off, hosted by my dear friend Nicole. I have some Eurasian Jay portraits for you and I hope you like.

The one below somehow reminds me of Uncle Carl-Eugene from the family portrait gallery or something. :D

Pretty sure I showed you this little watercolor portrait already. It went through all stages of ugly, before it became nice. But the problem is always when to stop, before I overdo the paintings.

Friday Face Off (FFO): Donkey

 I drew this donkey portrait back in March for a daily drawing challenge called #animalmarch. I missed out on FFO so often, that's why I share this cutie so late with you all. Hope you enjoy it despite of my delay.

Sharing with Nicole over at Beadwright for Friday Face Off (FFO).

T stands for....wasps and willows!

Monday morning and I needed a "real coffee", I mean one from a Moka Express, with the typical noise and heavenly smell and all. 

Not much on the drawing table lately, but I finished this little bookmark. I had it sketched out for quite a while, but only colored it last week. It's Grey Heron. I love to make bookmarks from paper cutoffs, which otherwise would go to the bin.

While I'm not much at the drawing table, I spent a lot of time in the garden, as the weather was nice and warm last week. I spotted the first wild bee burrows. I have a slope in my garden and during spring and summer, the whole slope is covered with burrows and a cloud of flying bees in all sizes. Amazing how these small creatures can dig these holes into our clay soil, which is hard as concrete, when dry.

And for those, who aren't already in love with those little souls: Here's a male Hairy-Footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes). Isn't he gorgeous and cute? And it's perfectly clear, why they are called "hairy-footed".

And since these beauties fly very early in spring, it's essential that they find something to eat. Besides crocus and many other early bloomers, willows offer lots of food. Gladly I planted some of them in my hedgerow. Look at these colors!

And there are lots of other species foraging on the willows. And yes, that's a wasp. But one of the Polistinae family, which are much more relaxed than the pesty little members of the Vespinae family. "Feldwespen", as they are called in German, don't go after your breakfast. ;)

Sharing this post with Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T stands for.... Happy T Day!

 

T stands for....ink and pen

You know, that I sketch a LOT of birds (and occassionally some other animals or things). I do oit while watching tv or being on the phone, in boring meetings or while sitting on a park bench.

I mostly use a pencil for these sketches and am able to correct a wrong line. Every now and then the only pen available is a fineliner or a fountain pen. I decided I need to practice this a bit more: sketching things without the possibility to erase.

This Eurasian Wren is very small and done with a calligraphy pen.

Some days ago I filled a whole page with garden birds, while watching tv and using a fountain pen with black sketching ink. Not all turned out good, proportions off etc., but overall I  love them.

Robin is always easy and recognisable due to the markings.

And so is the Wren. Technically only an orb with a beak and a tail. That's how I started to learn drawing birds and I found such simple how-to's like this one by John Muir Laws very helpful, as talent is not everything and practice is the key.

The same is the Long-Tailed Tit, which is also only an orb with a long tail and a short beak. A fellow birder told me, that most birds only need very few lines to be recognisable and he is true.

And now for the drink to join in on Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T stands for....: A co-worker gave me this Pumpkin Spice Tea. It smelled good, but like many teas, it didn't hold what it was promising. :( Hope your tea experience was better today!

T stands for....some drawings

 I promised myself to start blogging right away after my Christmas holiday, but....life got in the way and I had to undergo a minor surgery (ok, the surgery was minor, but the healing will take some time).

So here we go, a bit later than planned. Some of the tea bags I used have motivational or funny quotes or puns on the labels, one for example says: "Tea warms the soul, when the sun hides." I love that.

To keep my mind off the surgery and stop myself from overthinking, I did a lot of drawing, for example some meadowflowers from a new book I have. Love dandelions.

I also filled some pages in my A3 sketchpad, mostly with lovely little birdies like Long Tailed Tits...

....or tiny Goldcrests.

I also found the muse to start and finish another colored pencil drawing of a Coal Tit. I'm always in love with colored pencils, when I finish a drawing, but the process is soooooo long sometimes with all the layers.

Most work I do these days to gather "pencil miles" (how John Muir Laws calls it) is small garden birds sketched with pencils like this Goldcrest.

And I really love my new drawing book "How to Draw Flowers" by Anastasia Sälinger. Easy step-by-step tutorials and only few materials. Maybe I share the greeting cards I made from the drawings. Here's a bellflower from the book.

Linking to Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T stands for....

#10minuteartwarmup or Doodling for Stress Reduction

When I visited my abandoned blog some time ago, I came across a blog post by CJ & Ink about her weekly doodling class for stress reduction. I loved the idea and remembered the #10minuteartwarmup I once participated in. I can't remember who hosted it once, but decided to try and do it daily. 10 minutes of sketching/drawing before office. 

Here are some of the sketches I did so far. Some are done on narrow paperstrips I got from a friend. Those were used for marking transport boxes and go to the bin after single use. So recycling is a plus.

European Robin

Blue Tit

Eurasian Wren

I also got a small sketchbook I carry in my backpack.

Another Robin

Long Tailed Tit

And another Robin. *LOL*

Eurasian Jay

Pied Avocet

I sometimes sketch a whole series of the same bird on an A3 sketchbook page. Here the Eurasian Kingfisher.

Friday Face OFF (FFO): Squirrel Faces

My dear friend Nicole literally forced me to come over and join her Friday Face OFF. As you might know, I'm not a big fan of drawing humans or human faces, so I go with some cute squirrel faces.

I LOVE to draw and paint birds, but promised to be braver this year and draw other animals. So here are some red squirrels (or Eurasian squirrels). I found a brown colored pencil in my workdesk drawer, so I used it to draw them.

 

Thursday Art Date with Rain: January 25th

Finally back on track with an art challenge, although I am not going with the prompt this time for Thursday Art Date with Rain, which is "Clocks". But I'd love to participate in the blog hop and see some fine art and food. So here I share some of my "Mittagspausenvögel" with you. I started sketching birds during my lunch break at work some years ago and shared them on Twitter and later Bluesky. Some of them turn into watercolor paintings later. 

Hope you like them as much as I do.

Chickadee, Coal Tit and Blue Tit

Sanderlings

Waxwing and Wren

 

Thursday Art Date with Rain: Jump!

 Hello lovely painters at Thursday Art Date with Rain!

I haven't posted in ages, which doesn't mean I don't paint. Jut didn't feel the urge to post something on my blog. But now I'm back and try to post more regularly. Missed you all!

Today's theme is JUMP and I just painted the perfect little fox for it. He's hunting mice and is part of a little series of A5 woodland animals in watercolors.

Like almost always it started with a pencil sketch.

And then White Nights watercolors. Starting to really love them. paper is Canson 300 grams/m² watercolor paper.

While I was waiting for my first vaccination, I did a whole sheet of pencil fox studies, so there will be more foxes in the future. The one below was painted on a postcard and will become part of my stash for greeting cards.

Enjoy all the beautiful artsy entries for today! Glad to be back posting!

Paint Party Friday: Time is running!

 Hey everyone! I missed out on all the art posts over the last weeks completely. But this week I'm back with many new things to share: sketches, paintings, art challenges, spring greeting cards!

First quick sketch is is the Frauenkirche in Dresden. From February 13th to February 15th 1944 Dresden was bombed by British and US air force bombers and approx. 25'000 people lost their lives. The church burnt down completely in these days, but was rebuilt from 1996 to 2005 and reconsecrated in the same year. Every year on February 13th we remember these days and we say: NEVER AGAIN!

The brown paper, you can see in these two sketches, was rescued from the recycling bin in office. I thought it looked like cool stuff and I tried some sketches on it. And it really is cool stuff. The snow owl with white and graphite pencil turned out really nice. It was my entry for a Twitter art challenge.

I also played with watercolors. Trying a robin with a less detail and lighter color application. Really like the look of this one.

Then there are my usual quick sketches with pencils. I went through my stash of all kinds of pencils and found the Kooh-I-Noor Progresso graphite pencils. They are wood free pencils and I really like to draw with them. Little Marsh Tit here.

Another art challenge on Twitter is #1hour1sketch. You usually get a photo or an other inspirational picture and then redraw it in less than 1 hour. Last week's challenge was a macaw.

I also sketched out more garden birds to eventually use for watercolor paintings. A Goldcrest,....

....a European Green Woodpecker,....

....a Nuthatch and....

....a Bullfinch, that seems to be very angry.

I also drew some crocus to try out different brands of colored pencils. Made these two beauties into greeting cards, perfect for sending spring greetings.

Sharing this with Paint Party Friday!