Paint Party Friday: Birds and more linocuts

 Hello and welcome for Paint Party Friday! First I'd like to thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my woodland animals from last week. Your kind words are appreciated! You don't know how much.

 So what's up for this week's PPF? Birds! Since I was born, my family has pet birds and at the age of three or four (maybe younger) I got my very own budgie, a green one, with a lovely character and he died at the age of 15 (yes, he got that old!). Since then I always had a pair of lovebirds, first Roseyfaced Lovebirds and then Fischer's Lovebirds. So of course I love birds!

Say hello to Amelia (always in the front) and Erhard (guess whom they named after *LOL*), my sweet Fischer's Lovebirds, who share our home. Don't worry about Amelia's missing feathers on her head. The "problem" is, that Erhard loves her so much, that he always nibbles on her head and neck and she lets him. Can't separate them! That's why they are called lovebirds.

So what did I draw this week? Birds of course. But more garden birds. Here's a quick pencil sketch of a nuthatch.

Added some color with watercolor pencils.

And then two wrens. Wasn't happy with my first one, as itididn't look wren-like to me. So this little guy seems to be a bit angry and is yelling at someone.

This one looks a bit worried and sad. Would love to a linocut from one of them.

And last but not least I finished the linocut of the wild boar. The African swine flu reached Germany two weeks ago, as they found it in a dead wild boar, and it threatens the existence of many farmers, but might change the view of how much meat we really need to consume and produce (we can have hope, right?). Nevertheless do I love wild boars. So here's my version in linocut. No test print yet, but I thought about making an art piece for my office.

Have a great weekend filled with creativity, time with your loved ones and maybe good food! Stay safe and Happy PPF!

 

Thursday Art Date and Paint Party Friday: Horses and Bridges

Good morning! Usually I write two posts, one for Thursday Art Date with Rain (TAD) and one for Paint Party Friday (PPF). But tthis week, I lost track on what I drew, painted and made for which challenge, so here's a collection. Some of them were already linked to TAG TUESDAY (TT), too.

Last week I drew a horse eye for TAD with Rain and someone suggested to draw a whole horse.

 

OK, it's only the head, but here it is. Love how it turned out. The original photo of a Trakehner mare was taken by Tanja Davis. When I realized how much my drawing of this young mare looked like a horse my great-grandfather owned (I have a photo of her), I became sad, that I never had the chance to get to know him.

This week's theme for TAD was architecture and for decades now I admire this old bridge (who was replaced by now with a concrete one) in my area. I sketched it back in 2011 with charcoal.

And now again with an ink pen. One day I'll do a more detailed drawing of it.

And then I realized how much I missed drawing horses. Didn't draw one in ages and a friend asked me to draw her Iceland mare called Fluga. Here's a first attempt. It's a bit "Fluga", but not really THE Fluga. *LOL*

For TT's "Down on the Farm" I made these three tags so far. No guarantee, that there will be more, when I draw more farm animals. All three are made with miniature drawings of some of my farm animals and they almost look like stamps. Love them!

TAG TUESDAY: Down on the Farm (3)

 OK, I got one more tag for TAG TUESDAY's "Down on the Farm". Are you bored already? *LOL* I also added eyelets and nice ribbons to all of the tags, so now they look really nice. Here are all three so far.

Made this one for a very dear co-worker, who had a very bad fall and broke her knee joint and ankle. I visited her yesterday and she could barely walk (knee broken on the right and ankle on the left). We had a nice cup of tea together and talked a little, all including social distancing ofc.

I went through my digital paper stash and found this very nice Liza Lews apple paper. Horses and apples go perfectly together, so I took my latest drawing of a horse and made a miniture of it with ink pen.

Added a little apple to the back, too.

TAG TUESDAY: Down on the Farm (2)

I made another tag for TAG TUESDAY's Down on the Farm theme. It's so much fun to play around with my drawing and downsize them to miniature drawings to make them fit on a tag.  

I used my drawing of a Border Leicester sheep (in love with their HUGE ears and noses! :) ) and recreated it as a miniature with a very fine ink pen. Then I found this fun "knitted" papers from a free download from Hunkydory and thought those were perfect to add to my little sheep tag. Can't remember from where I got the tag sheet with the "Happy Birthday" tag on it. So this is the perfect gift tag for the wool lover or knitter in your family! 

Have a great day!

Das NABU-Igelhaus/The Hedgehog House

 Wie in den letzten Jahren auch, besucht derzeit wieder regelmäßig ein Igel meinen winzigen Garten. Da er gut genährt ist und bei einem Test das Katzenfutter links liegen ließ, füttere ich derzeit noch nicht zu. Vielleicht gibt es im November ein wenig Rührei, falls er nicht genug findet.

Like the last years, a hedgehog is visiting my small garden. He looks well fed and doesn't need any additional food so far. Maybe I will put out some cat food or scrambled eggs later in fall, if he doesn't find enough food.

Um das Futter sicher aufstellen zu können (ohne dass die Nachbarskatzen allesamt mitfressen) und ihm eventuell eine Übernachtungsmöglichkeit zu bieten, haben wir am Wochenende das NABU-Igelhaus nachgebaut. Es muss noch gestrichen werden und dann kann es an seinen Platz in der Hecke naben dem Laubhaufen.

Since many of the neighbors' cats also like the cat food, we decided to build a hedgehog house with a very narrow entrance, so hopefully cats and other predators can't get in and the hedgie can eat and maybe also sleep in peace during the day. The house still needs some paint and can then be placed in the hedge, right beside the pile of dead wood and leaves.

TAG TUESDAY: Down on the Farm

This fortnight's theme on TAG TUESDAY was "Down on the Farm". How fun, that I jut planned on starting a series of farm animal drawings. I took my pig sketch and drew a miniature of it, cut it out and added it to a tag. Since pigs mean good luck, I added a four leaf clover and the wording meaning "good luck" in German. Still need to add a piece of string, but need to go through my stash. Have to find something rustic. :)

 

Paint Party Friday: Lots and lots of animals!

 Hello and welcome to Paint Party Friday!

Many of might know by now, that I love animals. I love to go to the zoo, into the woods and I also love to draw and paint them. So be prepared for lots of animals for this week.

First is the wild boar, I already showed you last week as a pencil sketch. Here he is in watercolor pencils.

The tawny owl. Not so sure about this one. She looks angry. *LOL*

I really like how the hare turned out. Eyes, colors, the color gradients.

And here's the squirrel. Not so happy, with how the pencils strokes are still showing after adding water. I might need to get a more high quality pencil set and try again with that. Or be more careful when adding the colors. Any tips here would be appreciated! :)

And when I thought I was finished with the woodland critters, DH said to me: a badger is missing! So this little guy joined us. Isn't he the cutest?

And here are all my woodland animals together, just in case you missed one. I hope to make all these into watercolor postcards on nice paper soon.

After woodland animal series is finished I'd love to do one with famr animals. Thought about going with "cute", but............I always think they look like children's drawings. Maybe cute isn't for me, although I love how the sheep turned out.

The first day thinking about farm animals wasn't a good one on the drawing board. Nothing worked. Then I came across pictures of my favorite sheep: Bluefaced Leicester/Border Leicester sheep. I simply love their HUGE noses and ears. This guy then showed up. Love him!

And right behind him was a pig of a breed native to my area, the so called "Schwäbisch-Hällisches Landschwein". Young one and so cute! Stay tuned for more farm animals!

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