Ink Sketches

 I had a lot of fun lately doing little ink sketches on A6 papers, just for practice. And as I made more and more, I decided to get a little folder for them to keep them safely stored.

I always started with a little bird in the middle and then added the plants and other small nature items like shells or feathers.

I put the little folder on my desk at work, so I can look at the sketches every now and then and add more.

Hope you like!

T stands for....rhubarb syrup!

 Yesterday I read about Nicole's gardening and her delicious veggie harvest. So I thought I'd share my own, as gardening is in full swing over here.

The first row of potatoes with six plants brought almost 6 kgs of huge potatoes. Yum! And six more rows to go.

We have neighbors which own over 60 fruit trees. Most of them, lke apples and pears go into juice making, which you can then buy from local shops. But others are so delicious like these pears he brought us. We usually pay back in tomato sauce, lettuce and zucchini, as they don't have a veggie garden. 

We had a very rainy (much needed) July, so the tomatoes only start to ripen by now. This was the first from last week, but I picked about 15 more of this variety yesterday.

Since the climate gets milder and warmer, I can now grow plants, which wouldn't grow without a greenhouse some years ago. Like these eggplants/aubergines. Left is a variety called "Blauhilde", right is called "Little Green". I will try and make veggie "Schnitzel" from them. A co-worker gave me the recipe.

I grow lots of different veggies and fruits in my garden in mixed cultivation beds and sometimes it looks like a big jungle and there's always something to pick. Sometimes it's all green: zucchini, cucumbers, bush and runner beans, basil.

I also got some berry bushes, as gifts or bought end of seasons for little money. Berries are incredibly expensive, when you have to buy them at the grocery store, so growing them in the garden also saves money. I have blueberries (not the native variety, but the American), blackberries, raspberries, black currants and wild strawberries. 

And once everything is harvested, the canning starts. This weekend I canned: Pesto alla Genovese, dill pickles from the mini cucumbers, pears for dessert or cake, rhubarb sauce and syrup. The beans don't get canned, but blanched and frozen.

And the rhubard syrup buys me the ticket for T stands for...., hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth. Get well soon!

The #wildkräuterreise continues

 I was invited by a dear friend on Bluesky to join a "#wildkräuterreise" (wild herb trip), which leads us to find and get to know 12 wild herbs around the Summer Solstice. The fun thing is, that I have most of them in my garden, but also found some during my lunch break walks. I already presented four pages some time ago, so here are the remainging eight to fnish the journey. Hope you like!

Ribwort Plantain

Elderberry

Pineapple Weed

Common Daisy

Cleavers

Viper's Bugloss

Lavender

Vervain

Friday Face Off: Sunflowers

 I posted this sunflower (one of many in my garden) with the two bumblebees and then someone wrote: "Your sunflower looks very surprised!" Can you see the face, too?

I have several sunflowers in my garden, scattered all over the veggie beds. I didn't plant a single one of them, but they grow by accident from the sunflower seeds in the compost. The compost is where I empty the parrot food bowls. So my parrots help with gradening and I think, they did a great job.

Linking to Friday Face Off by my dear friend Nicole. 

T stands for....cold brew tea time!

 Hello and Happy T Day!

I got some new cold brew tea for the hot summer days. I wasn't expecting much from this one, as it smelled like sun lotion at first. But I like it and it tastes very refreshing.

What on the drawing table? I tested some bamboo paper by Calirefontaine and I reallly like it. Painted a bird, that I already painted an dozen times, so that's perfect for testing new papers.

The garden is doing great so far and besides some peas I already harvested some garlic. Also gave some to family and friends.

I was invited by a dear friend on Bluesky to join a "#wildkräuterreise" (wild herb trip), which leads us to find and get to know 12 wild herbs around the summer solstice. The fun thing is, that I have most of them in my garden, but also found some during my lunch break walks.

Common Mugwort

St. John's-wort

Yarrow

Stinging Nettle

Bought myself some new sketching pencils from Caran d'Ache, which are invisible, if you copy a sketch. So you can sketch something and then draw over it with ink or a dark pencil . 

I often used colored pencils for my sketches, but these are much better, as they are erasable. Did this Little Owl as a test.

Sharing this blog post with T stands for.... by Bleubeard and Elisabeth!

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.

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.