TAG TUESDAY: All Hallows' Eve

I'm so sad I missed out for last fortnight's theme of "Trees", but life got in the way and there was no chance to create something with my linocut stamps I made for printing Christmas cards and tags. But here's a little test print I made earlier this year.

I'm definitely not a "spooky" kind of girl, doing costume parties or "trick and treat", but I definitely love the idea, that on All Hallows' Eve the gates to the world of the death are open. Might be childish, but I would have a lot of fun meeting up with my grandparents or some other people, who are no longer with us on this earth. Would you like to talk to someone, who already passed away? A dear friend, a family member, a great scientist?

But enough of that. Here's my Halloween tag. I took my brush pens and tried out a tip I read somewhere. First use the brush pens and then go over the ink with a waterbrush. Worked fine to blend the colors. And I love how the little bat turned out.

For my birthday this week, my coworkers gave me this little bat box, that can be hung onto a tree or a house wall and where bats can sleep during the day. So maybe soon, once our house is built I can have my own bats in the garden. How fun is that? Love those little night creatures.

TAG TUESDAY: Book Pages

For the latest TAG TUESDAY challenge "Book Print" I took one of my new bird linocuts and printed it on the notes and text of a popular German folk song called "Alle Vögel sind schon da". My little wren loves to sing along. Isn't he the cutest?

 I also used some of the distress inks I lately bought, but need some more practice with that. I also found some cute stamps in my stash and added some to the front and back. I hope you like it!

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!

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. :)

 

TAG TUESDAY: The Pink Lady(bird)

 Yesterday I already wrote about ladybirds being important helpers in my garden. Many little creatures are, not just ladybugs. That's why I love this quote from Dave Goulson, UK scientist and founder of the British Bumblebee Conservation Trust, well-known for his books and his research on insects and of course bumblebees. If you don't know his books, you should really read them. They are not only funny, but also very informative.

I lately got interested in linocut/linoprint again, after doing this about 25 years back when I was in school.  The first things I cut were a bumblebee and a ladybug. For this huge tag I used a background paper by Sally Denton and added the quote and the ladybug linoprint, which I colored with watercolor pencils. I also added white paper to the back to write a message on. There's a lot of space on this tag. *LOL* With the leftovers I made another smaller tag.

Linking to TAG TUESDAY!

TAG TUESDAY: Ladybirds!

 The theme for this fortnight's TAG TUESDAY is: ladybirds! Who doesn't love ladybirds? Yes, I love them, because they are cute, but I do also love them because they eat lice. They are some of my most important helpers in the garden. I love their larvae running around in my plants, eating, eating, eating and growing, until one day......

....they pupate and become this!

And some days later the ladybird hatches (and continues to eat lice). I love exploring this small world in my garden. So much to see and learn.

And here's my first tag for this fortnight's TAG TUESDAY!

TAG TUESDAY: Alice in Wonderland

This fortnight's theme over at TAG TUESDAY is Alice in Wonderland. I remember that we had the book as kids, but I couldn't remember being a big fan of it back then. The Queen of Hearts was a ver scary lady. "Off with his head!" *LOL* Maybe I'll make another tag with this quote, but for now here's Cheshire Cat or at least his smile. 

Ain't that the truth, ladies? :D

TAG TUESDAY: Christmas (2)

 I made another tag for TAG TUESDAY. It wasn't planned, but one of my abstract color field paintings for Thursday Art Date went wrong. I thought that it looked like a poinsettia, so I cut it out, backed it with sturdy cardboard and added Christmas wishes. Not the best photo, as it's already getting dark here, and the acrylic paints are very high gloss.

 

 

TAG TUESDAY: Christmas

By participating again in Paint Party Friday I came across a blog called TAG TUESDAY, which is run by a lovely lady called Valerie-Jael (she is also a very busy participant in PPF and posts her beautiful photos and pieces of art on her own blog several times a week) and the TAG TUESDAY Design Team. They post a theme for the tags each fortnight and the participants can enter their tags for others to see.

I do make tags, but when I see all the other beautiful pieces of art, I'm almost ashemed to show my small, simple and handdrawn tags. But I love to add those small drawings to gifts as a personal note, so here they are for this fortnight's theme: Christmas! 

I like to do sets, same size, with ink pen and colored pencils.

And here's a bigger one, also with ink pen and colored pencils. I saw a similar tree somewhere online and tried my own version of it. Like the tree is dancing to some Christmas carol. *LOL*

Paint Party Friday: A Badger and a Robin

This week there are some animals for Paint Party Friday.

First is a drawing of an European badger (Meles meles). I useed my set of Derwent graphite pencils for this. Still learning on how to put them to good use and which one to use for which purpose. Learning.

The second piece is as set of three little gift tags, I also shared with Tag Tuesday. Love to do those ittle pieces. Did you already check out the beautiful little pieces of art the participants share every two weeks?

Sharing this post with Paint Party Friday! Come over and have a look at all the beautiful pieces of art!

Tag Tuesday: A Robin's Story

Little robin built her nest and filled it with little blue eggs. She keeps them warm day and night. But what's that? A foreign feather? Is someone sneaking around the nest of little robin?

Sharing these three tags with Tag Tuesday, hosted by my friend Valerie and others. Check out all the little pieces of art shown there. This time the them was "Birds, nests and eggs".