Paint Party Friday: Painting for Advent

 A week ago I decided to do an advent calendar for my brother and his family, with handpainted mini watercolors and Christmas poems and stories for each day. So here I am. Four are still missing.

Candles for the four Advent Sundays. Is an advent wreath a tradition in your part of the world?

Hats and baubles and a tree.

Sweets and gifts and a bell.

Santa's hat, mich love and warm mittens.

And of course some lights, glitter and fun in the snow.

Happy PPF everyone!

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Paint Party Friday: Is It Fall Already?

Good morning for Paint Party Friday! I didn't share my art here for some time, as life got in the way. We're building a house and do the interiors for some weeks (putting up wallpapers, painting, laying tiles etc.) and my husband got injured in the process, so he can't use his left arm for some months. So it was all up to me and my lovely parents and parents-in-law, who helped us so much. We are very lucky to have them!

But back to art. Although I didn't have much art time, I painted and drew some things. For example this barn owl on Strahtmore Toned Tan paper. Got it yesterday and love it already. The pencils were Faber Castell.

Then I drew/painted some squirrels. On the parking lot in front of my office building, there are some nut trees and those little guys are busy right now collecting the nuts. This one is drawn with colored pencils.

And here's the same motif with watercolors. Fur is still my weak spot. :/

A Youtube tutorial and some fellow artists in Twitter made me try the salt technique on watercolors. I think it gives a very nice effect. I painted this leaf and while still wet, I sprinkled fine salt over it. The fun is, that the painting still glitters a bit, when the dried salt is removed.

Also painted this winter motif after a YT tutorial and sprinkled it with coarse salt. Love how the background turned out.

Made some of the drawings/paintings of the last weeks into cards for Christmas and for other occassions. It's always good to have some in store. :)

Have a great artsy weekend!

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Paint Party Friday: Regaining Confidence

 Hello and welcome to Paint Party Friday!

After my pencil desaster at the beginning of the week, I worked on some pencil drawing to regain confidence in drawing with pencils (and not being afraid to sharpen them! *LOL*). Derwent customer service reacted at its best and will send me a replacement tin of pencils right away. Didn't expect that, but LOVE a good customer service (as I couldn't find the receipt and couldn't remember where I bought the pencils).

Soooooo, here are some drawings I did this week. A pied wagtail with Derwent pencils.

Then I used a Staedtler pencil I found in my stash, as a fellow Twitter artist recommended them. Proud how this hare turned out. Isn't she beautiful?

I adore ravens and so I tried one late last night, but was too tired to get the shading and all his feathers right.

Lots of other art stuff besides drawing happened this week. I cut a passepartout and finally framed the birthday gift for a very dear friend. She paints, too, and I have one of her paintings, so it was time to gift one of mine to her, too. I painted this robin after a painting by Ralston Gudgeon, a Scottish wildlife painter I adore. Framed and with the passepartout it looks just perfect!

I also had a nice art exchange with a talented fellow Twitter artist and she sent me some amazing ATCs. The rabbit is too cute, but the lovebirds! You know I own a pair exactly like these two.

She also sent me some goodies: nice paperclips, some blank ATCs for paper tests, a nice card and some tea.

Last, but not least I bought myself some new pencils and a watercolor book with lots of small motifs, how to paint them and some basic knowledge about watercolor painting. I'm sure I will post some of the motifs I painted from the book. ;)

Have a great weekend with some time for art and stay safe!

Paint Party Friday: Lots of Yellow and Black

 A bit late to the party, but here we go. I got some yellow and black to share with you.

This week I prepared a piece of watercolor paper for painting a Great Tit. Life got in the way, but Friday evening I felt the urge to draw something. So the Great Tit was sketched out on a piece of drawing paper and I used my colored pencils to add some color. Love the pose of this bird!

 

 

A Twitter follower, which is by the way a very talented colored pencil artist and lately started watercolors with the help of some tutorials, shared a tutorial with me on how to paint bumblebees. I had to give it a try on a piece of scrap paper. Turns out to be the perfect format for a bookmark.

 

 

For this week's Thursday Art Date with Rain I shared an owl. Owls are my weak spot, when it comes to drawing them, but since the last one turned out nice, I started another drawing with a Little Owl. Will take some time, as it it A4 format, but I already love its expression. Makes me laugh.

 

 

Have a great weekend and make sure to visit all the other fantastic artists!

 

Paint Party Friday: Blue Birds and Big Horses

 Hello and welcome for Paint Party Friday!

The last weeks I mostly painted ATCs, that I can't share yet, as they were made for a swap and the recipients are still waiting for their letters. I had so much fun painting in this tiny format.

But of course I have some birds and horses to share. Revisited some of my garden birds sketches and made some cards for my stash from them. Here's a nuthatch painted this week.

 

I love to "repaint" some of my sketches and check if I can see any progress on my painting technique. This nuthatch is from December 2020. I can definitely see some progress here.

 

 And here's a little blue tit I painted this week and I wasn't very happy with it, as it looks like I only added color without any sense.

This one is from February 2021. Not sure, if I like it better, but the raw paper surface certainly adds interest to this older version.

And here are some draft horse sketches. I'd like to make a small series of ATCs with domestic animals on them, so I need a horse. Already got a sheep and a pig. A cow is missing, too. We will see where this leads me. I definitely love big horses.

I think, this one would look nice on the ATC, but needs to be downsized

Have a great weekend and make sure to visit all the artists for PPF!

Paint Party Friday: Hedgehogs for a Birthday Card

Hello and welcome for Paint Party Friday!

This week was my husband's birthday and although we don't give each other any gifts, I usually paint him a card for birthdays or anniversaries.

He loves hedgehogs and so I sketched a lot of hedgehogs to have some to choose from. They all turned out cute, but I had to decide (not that that I wouldn't use the other cuties for future paintings *LOL*).

I really like the new watercolor paper and althought the format is a bit weird, it's perfect for cutting A 6 cards from it. Hedgie no 1 was this one. Painted with White Nights watercolors.

Hedgehog no 2 was a bit off center, so I decided to add a bumblebee to balance it out..

Glued both of the hedgies on cards. DH got the top oneand the other one went into my card stash. Always good to have some handpainted cards, so I don't have to paint some under pressure. Really in love with these two hedgehogs.

Have a great weekend and make sure to visit all the wonderful artists for Paint Party Friday.

Paint Party Friday: Woodland Animals and New Watercolor Paper

 Hello and welcome for Paint Party Friday!

I started a A5 mini series in watercolors with wood animals, maybe for hanging on the walls of our new house. Two are finished so far, a fox and a roe deer. All are painted on Canson 300g/m² paper with White Nights watercolors.

Love how the fox jumps while hunting mice! Some of you might know him already from Thursday Art Date with Rain, where I shared him for the "Jump" theme.

 

 

Both would look great framed and side by side on the wall.

 

 

Although I think I got the coloring of the roe deer right, it looks a bit plein to me, like I should have worked on the shading a bit more. But it's still a learning process.

This week I also got some new watercolor paper and ofc I had to try it at once. Beach scene! I really, really want to go and see the ocean this year. Hopefully it is possible. Really like the paper and will use it often in the future. Also used White Nights watercolors, as they are my favorites now.

 

 

Have a great weekend everyone and make sure to visit all the other artists for Paint Party Friday!

 

Paint Party Friday: Lost in Watercolors

 Long time no see! So here's an overview of what I painted the last weeks or months.

I went on with my garden birds. There are some more by now, so I have to take a new pic, but here are 17 so far.

I participated in a fun drawing challenge called Mermay 2021 and we got a ocean-related prompt for every day of May and then paint, draw, photograph etc. Then post on Twitter. Much fun!

This was "Deep Sea".

"Octopus"

"Starfish"

"Lighthouse": This is the lighthouse "Roter Sand" (Red Sand) in the North Sea.

"Crab"

"Vortex"

"Fishermen"

"Dolphin"

"Iceberg"

Couldn't post all 31 paintings, so I just picked my favourites, but here are all Mermay 2021 paintings in one photo.

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Paint Party Friday: More animal watercolors

Hello everyone! Seems that I lost my painting mojo over the last weeks, but now I'm back with some more watercolor animals for Paint Party Friday. Just in time for the 10th Anniversary! Since Easter is approaching, you can see a lot of hares and chicken on social media. Paintings, drawings, lino prints etc. Lovely art out there!

I decided to try my hand on a hare, too. Here is the postcard sized version.

I then sketched a hen and painted both, hare and hen, in A5 size. Love them and think about displaying them in frames for Easter. I think the postcard sized hare will get a hen companion, too.

There are also two more garden birds this week. The first is a Goldcrest, a tiny bird (weighing only 9 grams) native to my area. I made this quick watercolor sketch during lunch break in office with my travelling watercolor set. That's exactly what I bought it for. :)
 

Then I finally finished the litte Marsh Tit. It sat unfinished for several weeks now, as I was afraid to ruin it. Loved the first layer of color so much. *LOL* But I love how it turned out. So cute!

 

 Sharing these post with Paint Party Friday! Come on over and have a look at all the beautiful art shared there.