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Sorry I'm not posting much these days, my life is super busy - but a few days ago I found the time to sketch outside. (It's the park "Planten un Blomen" in Hamburg.) Only a fast ten-minute drawing with watercolors and acrylic markers, I'm afraid, but better than nothing, I guess. Life is not the same without art!

So, here's my sketch...



...and here's a picture of the park itself, with my sketchbook obstructing the nice view. ;) Seriously, taking a photo of art against the light is a bad idea; you can see what it did to the colors... I only took this picture to show the place.



By the way, in this photo, you can see how much the angle of incidence matters when it comes to light on a water surface! From where I was sitting, the water looked murky and dark with only a few blotches of color where stuff was reflecting. When I stood up to take the photo, suddenly, the changed angle meant the water appeared light because of the reflected sky! Amazing how these things go...

A sketchbook page that turned out interesting enough to show, not least because of the new-to-me materials. :) The cracks in the wood looked pretty enough that I had to stop and draw them.



Okay, the acrylic pens are not new. I use those all the time! Here, I used a combination of various brands (Liquitex, Amsterdam Acrylics, some others) and they're all awesome - I'm not picky with my sketching supplies as long as they work properly!

...which brings me to the Sennelier ink brush pens, which are new to me. I actually received them years and years ago (in some advent calendar, which is where I get most of the art supply surprises) but never touched them because of their reputation. Basically, they don't work properly - they blotch and leak all the time. Which makes them really fucking useless when it comes to sketchbook tours. No surprise here: I had exactly the experience that others before me described. There's ink coming out. All the fucking time. It's not stopping. If you pause painting even for ten seconds or so, there will be a drop of ink collecting at the tip. I wonder who designed this and who the fuck decided, "yes, this is a marketable product, let's launch it"... WTF?!? 

But also, something happened that I really did not expect: I actually really like these ink brush pens. XD Yes, you read that right. They're actually a lot of fun to paint with, if you like a little bit of adrenaline in your life. It makes you work quickly and fill the page with color, and if you hesitate... You know what will happen... XD XD XD The colors themselves really are lovely! (I mainly used brown and a bit of dark green on this page of already brown-ish paper.) I love the brush tips, too - those are actually excellent quality, the right combination of soft and springy. These pens could be great if not for this one little drippy issue... I will never take them traveling again, though. I'm storing these pens tip up (!) in a jar on my desk because holding them tip up is really the only way to keep them from leaking.

Paper is the Hahnemühle Toned Watercolour book (in 14x14 cm, which is something like 5.5*x5.5''), another excellent product if you ignore one tiny issue - in this case, that it's fantastic as long as you avoid the watercolours. I really like to use it with my acrylic pens. :)

Have a cute dragon picture!

No, this was actually not planned, but a funny and very fitting coincidence: finally, my newest homemade watercolor is ready! Today is the best day to publish a paint called "Living Sun", right? Happy Solstice to everyone who celebrates, and a wonderful time to everyone else, too! :D



Filling the pans took a while: I learned that PY159 is a very annoying pigment, even more difficult to work with than the PB71 I already complained about. It loves to unmix and it loves to make awful lumps that no amount of grinding managed to remove: after an hour, new lumps inevitably formed. I'm soooo glad I somehow got this into the pans!



I added a small amount of PY138 because... PY159 granulates nicely but is not a particularly intense color. So, the PY138 (which is a cool and very intense yellow) unmixes on the paper from the (warm) PY159, and it's an effect I'm actually very happy with. Looks much nicer in real life than in the photo!

It's that time of the year - I may not celebrate Christmas, but I celebrate everything around Christmas, just because. (Yes, I have an Advent calendar again, too. Okay, three Advent calendars. (In exchanges with artist friends, because store-bought calendars are boring.) You get the idea. I really like all the Christmas-y stuff!) Part of that is, of course, the food. So, here's some very classical Christmas baking! (Hazelnuts! Orange marmalade! YAY!) A bit early, but... I don't care. The supermarkets are starting to play that awful music, so, if I have to live with that, at least I can have the good stuff of the season as well, right?

Boyfriend already made an Advent wreath last weekend! (No candles, just branches and glittery stuff.) He met with some friends and they crafted together. :)



And I baked.

( Just in case you are interested in the (very simple) recipe... It's behind the cut. )



These... Won't survive long... XDD

If there is one color that defines the North German autumn, that would be this one.



Okay, technically, heather season is already over, but... It's definitely not a coincidence that I decided to produce this particular shade of granulating purple. 

In case you were wondering: yes, the Lüneburg Heath has some heather. XD That's a bit of an understatement, actually: heather bloom is such a spectacular view that people track it online so you can find the best spots for heather-viewing... (Oh, and they have pretty pictures, too.) Ah, unique North German hobbies. XD

By the way, the weather models predict the year's first frost for this weekend. Kale, YAY! (The kale plants need frost before they can be harvested and eaten.) I'm so looking forward to kale season! :)

...or: the chemical adventure goes on. I was missing a yellowish color in my little landscape paint set, so, this is what happened. Still very wet; will likely need ages to dry. As usual.




When used relatively dry, the color looks like a relatively neutral "normal" ocher. When used very wet and/or on textured paper it unmixes into warm yellow and (thanks to the PW18, which is a dark dusty rose really) more reddish dark zones.

Pigments: PY138, PY154, PV19, PW18

Another botanical ATC (6,4 x 8,9 cm), and the first attempt to actually use my new selfmade watercolors. Turns out they work as expected, with textures and everything, which is a relief, because otherwise I'd be stuck with a year's supply or so of green paint I hate. XD Of course, I had to use some other (store-bought) greens on this as well, but that's okay. (It's perfectly clear that only two greens are not nearly enough.) I'm just glad I didn't botch things.



Used watercolors:
Michael Harding: Titanium White, Pyrrole Red, Bright Green Lake, Phthalocyanine Green Lake, Dark Morellone Earth
Schmincke Horadam: Dunkelrot
Isaro: Magenta
Nila Colori: Ocra Violetta Armena
My own paints: Living Tree, Living Forest



I didn't need the blue and the brown for this picture (come to think of it, I almost never need blue), but test paintings with those (and, ugh, they really look nicer than in this photo; sorry, bad lighting here) will follow soon.

My newest watercolor-making experiment! Producing this stuff at home is a lot of work, but hey, it gets me some colors not commercially available, so... XD



I wanted a supergranulating multi-pigment color that unmixes when you use it very wet, and I think it worked just fine! On rough (Torchon) paper, it creates these interesting effects. I think I'm going to use it a lot in landscape sketches!

Happy solstice! :3