LAS Bird Drawing Workshops: Shorebirds and Waterbirds with John Muir Laws

 The last two weeks I looked for drawing workshop videos on Youtube, that I can watch and sketch along with, to pick up some more tips and tricks and practice drawing. One of my favorite drawing instructors is John Muir Laws and I found some great workshop videos hosted by the Lahontan Audubon Society. One of them was about drawing shorebirds and waterbirds.

Since the workshop video runs 2 hours, I watch it in parts, like 30 mins during my lunch break. It's a lot of fun. I filled two A3 pages so far. Page 1 was about getting the proportions right.

Page 2 was about different angles and the different feather groups (bird in the bottom right corner). Will post more, when I watched the rest of the video.

I also filled a page with Pied Avocets. A dear Bluesky friend and follower posted such lovely photos of an Avocet pair and chicks and I had to do a sketch of them.

Stay safe, wherever you are.

International Nature Journaling Week 2025 Part Two

 Sadly International Nature Journaling Week is already over, but I really, really enjoyed it BIG time. Althought I couldn't find any people participating on Bluesky, it was real fun to think about the daily prompts for "Conversations with Nature".

Day 5 was on so right up my alley with Bethan Burton's video "Listening to the veggie patch", where she shared her garden journal and how she listens attentively to her veggie patch. While listening to her video I created my own nature journal page. 

Day 6 was all about the Merlin Bird App and how it helped me identifying birds by their song and then describe, what they look like. Do you use the Merlin Bird App?

The final Day 7 was about "Creating a vision for the future". So how can we do that and stay positive? With all that's going on in the world right now, it's easy to loose hope and tell yourself, this is all pointless and creating a wildlife garden leads to nothing. But like I wrote in my Bluesky post: It's all about the fluffy litte guy with the bright green eyes! Without planting lavender two years ago, I'd never met him and be able to admire his green eyes. Maybe this can encourage others to get into action!

International Nature Journaling Week 1st-7th June 2025

It's International Nature Journaling Week and I'm doing my best to keep up to date with my journal pages Here are pages 1 to 4 and if you want to join, you can find the daily prompts on the official website. 

For Day 1 I met an unusual lovebug and a huge storm cloud.

Day 2 was all about learning to say "Blue Tit" in many other languages. Pimpelmees (Dutch) was my favourite.

Day 3 was all bout the the wonderful art of Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane. If you love nature and are not familiar with their books, check out this website. Sharing this little fox face with Friday Face Off by my dear friend Nicole.

For Day 4 I visited a small exhibition in the basement of my workplace and learnt about the people that lived here 2'000 years ago.

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....fine tea from Harrods!

 Hello! A little bit late to the T party, but here I am. Found this beautiful poppy on one of my lunch break walks.

Of course there must be some bird paintings. Some will find a place in my 2026 bird calendar. Here's a portrait of an Eurasian Jay.

I fell in love with terns lately. I mean....some individuals of Arctic Terns travel up to 90.000 km in ONE year. Without navigation gear and lunchbox. I mean....WOW!

How does the garden grow? My neighbour planted and elder bush three years ago. Look at it! She said to cut off any flowers or berries I want for juice or syrup. Yum!

Here in my area it was still cold during the nights, so I waited with planting tomatoes, eggplants etc. But the potatoes are in since end of April and they are doing great. Mulched with straw.

Peppers and tomatoes are in by now, but still very small.

I bought this little tin years back in London, when I visited family there. Still have it and keep fine teas in it. Nice memories!

Sharing with Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T stands for....

T stands for....Franconian beer!

Hey there and I hope you are all well! I'm just back from a beautiful vacation on the farnconian lakes near Nuremberg and found the time to create some nature journal pages. Yes, they got beavers there!

Also lots of water birds.

They also leave lots of meadows unmown during spring and summer, so the animals, especially field hares, have a  place to hide.

This page is actually not from my vacation, but from my lunch break at work, where I usually visit the local cemetary, as it is so nice there sitting on bench in the shade, listening to birds and watching the lizards.

We also enjoyed some tasty Franconian beer (Franconian, NOT Bavarian, that is very important! ;)).

Sharing with T stands for.... hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth!

Friday Face Off (FFO): Portrait Challenge

For the weekly portrait challenge on Bluesky last week, this "Portrait of a young woman, drawn with pastels on paper by Federico Barocci, sometime between 1585-1590" was the reference. I fell in love with her and tried my best, but portraits are so not up my alley and they aren't something I practice very often.

 

I think the main problem is her left eye, the rest is ok.

 

 

Sharing with Friday Face Off by my wonderful friend Nicole.