Paint Party Friday: Happy New Year!

 Hello and Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you found some time to paint during the holidays and enjoyed crafting and painting. I did, as I got some new colors and explored the world of watercolors a bit more. Since painting is a lot of practice besides talent, I went on with my garden birds. You already know my little Robin and some pencils sketched of more birds.

Not sure, if I already showed you the painted Nuthatch. Love those birds and I see them a lot in parks and forests around here. Fun to watch, as they climb up and down the trees.

And then of course the little Wren, that always has something to tell. *LOL* I already made a linocut from the sketch and printed some cards with. And now it's here in watercolors.

One morning, just before the new year arrived, I looked out of my kitchen window and there was a Goldfinch at one of my birdfeeders. Never seen one on my garden so far and after it inspected the feeder, it went at some of the dead plants to look at the seedheads for a quick snack.

Here's a shoot of all four birds I painted at that time. I shared them to Twitter and was amazed at how many people liked and shared them.

And on I went with a Spotted Woodpecker. I have one now and then in my little yard, pecking on the dead wood pieces I hung up for the wild bees. It's a after their larvae for snack.

And last, but not least so far (I got several birds already roughly sketched out and need to add paint) is a Sparrow. I have a whole flock of them visiting my feeders regularly, eating up all the goodies. *LOL*

Since I got some new colors, pencils and watercolors, I also did some tests. With the pencils I did a little Christmas elf with a lantern. He was an idea for a Christmas card for next year, guiding people safely through the dark winter nights.

With the new Winsor & Newton watercolors I tried my little sleeping fox, to see how the colors work on the paper.

And the last project, I finished late last night is a mini watercolor sketchbook. My lovely friend Soma of Ink Torrents inspired me to try my hand and start making my own little sketchbook, This came out pretty nice for a first and is the perfect addition to my mini watercolor set I bought myself for Christmas.

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