eller | Entries tagged with animals

So, this is for an advent calendar game thingy... You know how much I love those. XD We have 25 participants, everyone draws 24 inchies (yes, little 1x1 inch drawings) and sends them to our victim organizer, who then builds advent calendars for all of us... With one inchie from each other participant. YAY! (Holy crap, I'm so f*cking glad I don't have to pack those letters!) These are the 24 inchies I drew. The topics are varied because I looked at everyone's profiles to find something that a) they will like, and b) I can actually draw. (Occasionally, that was one small Venn diagram.)

Inchie-Adventskalender-2024-kl

My favorite is, of course, the bog landscape - out of principle. (Yes, someone asked for that. Can do... LOL) I was also surprised that someone requested minerals, because, hey. XD From a purely artistic standpoint, I'm especially happy how the dragonfly and the fern turned out.

I used Staedtler fineliners (different tip sizes), watercolors, Posca white acrylic pen and Sakura white gel pen on KREUL mixed media paper (which is one of the very few "mixed media" papers that actually work for wet media).I don't know why the scan is so blurry - maybe something in the scanner settings.

Two animal postcards for people on Postcrossing.

Eidechsen-kl

Both cards are made with acrylic pens (various brands) on watercolor paper (JAXON Aquarell Postkarten, and by the way, those suck, I am only using the box up so they are finally gone). I like that the acrylic pens behave almost like watercolors when you spread the color with a wet paintbrush but are waterproof after drying. I used spray varnish on the cards anyway, to protect them in the mail.

...for people on Postcrossing. Very different techniques, because I enjoy some variety.

Baum-kl

This tree is a classic fineliner sketch painted with watercolors. Most of the drawing was done in the park during lunch time, but I did the last color layer later. (Had to let things dry!) Of course, I used spray varnish in the end, so the thing is sort-of-safe to mail.

oktopus-kl

And this little underwater scene is a combination of acrylic paints (mostly smeared with my fingers, because that gives me more control than paintbrushes, and besides, it's fun!) and acrylic markers.

Drew this at Planten un Blomen (a park in Hamburg). Unfortunately, the very tame bird came over as soon as it noticed me and begged for food. They do that...

06-Taube-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a grey page this time
- Fineliner: Faber Castell Multimark permanent, black, in F
- Marker: Faber Castell Pitt big brush in Cold Grey III
- Acrylic pen: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in white (in some places diluted with water and paintbrush)

We all like cute animal pictures, right? Right. XD Anyway, yesterday, I had a bit of a surprise:

Hase-1-kl

Yes, that's a hare. (If you've never seen a hare: imagine a giant rabbit with slightly off body proportions, lighter eyes, and black-tipped ears. But mainly, you can tell them apart because a hare like this is really f*cking large, think medium-sized dog. LOL) In the middle of the day - and it's not the mating season for them. Oh, and in a park populated by humans, too. The thing is, usually, you don't see hares up close. (Unless you're a hunter and/or very patient.)

They are there, and they're not officially counted as a threatened species anymore, either, but you just don't see them, because a) they're nocturnal (unless it's mating season), b) they're extremely shy (and smarter than rabbits, and they remove themselves immediately if anything approaches), and c) they're really f*cking fast (Wikipedia says, "Hares can reach maximum speeds of 35 mph (56 km/h)^[68] in short distances of approximately 90 meters, and a top speed of 50 mph (80 km/h) for about 20 meters.^[69]"), which means that once they've noticed you, typically, all you see is that famous zigzag blur. (They change the direction while running in order to confuse predators.)

Admittedly, the Rhododendronpark (in Bremen) is kind of quiet during lunchtime, but really, a hare deciding this is a good place to feed during the day is kind of unusual, and a human getting close enough to get a picture with a "normal" compact camera (no tele objective) is just unlikely... I was actually kind of worried in case the animal was ill. But nope...

Hase-2-kl

Sure enough, as soon as I began taking pictures, the animal heard me (when focusing, the camera makes a beeping noise that I can't seem to turn off - maybe I'll have to destroy the beepy speaker thingy physically, because animals really dislike this sh*t) and decided to leave in a hurry - which, of course, is exactly the behavior you would expect when its sasse (sorry, I don't know the English word - you know, the earth hollow that hares fixate on) isn't anywhere close, so it can't simply crouch down and play dead.

Hase-3-kl

Ultra-slow (by hare standards; I still only got two pictures) zigzag run! XD

I wasn't paying attention to the plants at the time, but in the first picture, you see the likely explanation why I got so close in the first place: poppies. (These seed capsules are unmistakeable.) What a lovely place for a hare to get high... *headdesk* (Scientific note: no, that's not the poppy you use to make drugs; it would be kind of illegal to plant that in a public park. But even something with not enough opiate content to work on humans would likely be sufficient for a smaller mammal.) So, um, that hare was perfectly healthy and well fed (slightly overweight, even) but with a seriously slowed-down perception and reaction time due to, um, botanicals. Great. I mean, I would love to pretend I'm just that fast, but...

...we all know it's not possible to out-race a hare by fair means, right? You have to out-wit them. Maybe you know the famous story of The Hare and The Hedgehog, but apparently, drugging the poor beast will also work. ;)

This time from

ursula. (If you want five questions from me, just say so in the comments!)

1. What about you--do you have a scar with a good story?

Not really. I have some scars, like, burn scars on my shoulders from when my hair caught fire (pretty much invisible now after all those years, the area just feels different), and a knife scar on my leg from (unsurprisingly) an inexpert knife attack, but none of that has any kind of interesting story attached - just freak accidents (I'm very prone to those) and, in the knife case, a typical schoolyard conflict, but nothing out of the ordinary. My probably most interesting freak accident (falling into a pond of cyanobacteria in the wadden sea) was gross (and led to washing salon workers being very upset with me and getting me banned from that place) but did not leave a physical scar.

2. What's your favorite bog plant?

Sundew! I mean, is there any question? Standing in a carpet of sparkly carnivorous weeds is fun and SO PRETTY!!!

3. Any interesting memories involving zoos?

Also, not really. My parents didn't like to take me to the zoo because the idea of wild animals in captivity upsets them, so my interesting memories involving animals typically involve animals in the wild. (Plus, of course, the wolves from the wolfcenter in Lower Saxony, which is technically not a zoo because it's a home for native wolves who can't survive in the wild. Interacting with wolves is always interesting.) I mostly went to the zoo when the parents of other kids went as a family or as a birthday celebration and brought me along. My memory is... looking at foreign animals from a distance?!? I mean, I suppose it's good I got to see them, from an educational standpoint, but it was never particularly interesting though I liked to feed the elephants (who took apples, bread, and raw pasta from visitors and were enthusiastic about kid visitors; I suppose the elephants thought we were cute?!?) when that still was allowed.

4. Favorite style of jewelry?

Tenntrad. I mean, I don't wear much jewelry (beyond my portable sundials because I collect any and all sundials including shitty nonfunctional sundials), but when I do, it's tenntrad bracelets. That's leather (typically reindeer though there are some exceptions) with embroidered patterns from tin wire (hence the name LOL), as well as sometimes leather bands, silver beads, or other materials (like, say, fabric bands - it's rare but it happens when an artisan decides it should happen). The button is usually reindeer antler (again, with some exceptions).

Tenntrad-kl

They're very comfortable to wear - reindeer leather is one of the most comfortable materials imaginable, and as a result, these are the only bracelets I will tolerate - and also, I have a deep appreciation for interesting geometrical patterns. (A scientist friend of mine called them my "math bracelets" and I suppose she wasn't wrong.) As a result, I have these bracelets in any and all possible and impossible colors, including but not limited to my favorite color combination, pink-and-yellow. Or (decidedly nontraditional) rainbow flag tenntrad. (They just accumulate!) Which reminds me, I should probably make a separate tenntrad post at some point, because it's such a lovely technique.

5. Is there an age of child you find particularly entertaining?

Entertaining? When it comes down to it, children are just... people who happen to be younger than I am. The age that's most interesting to interact with is probably from 8-12 because they're old enough to be reasonable and think for themselves (and not need supervision for stupid stuff) but still young enough to profit the most from conversation with adults with more knowledge and life experience, but I find that neither cute nor entertaining nor anything else of the sort. They're just people.

Just something quick I drew for someone on Postcrossing - the person likes hippos, but unfortunately, I didn't have a hippo card in my collection, so I made one. I had to use lots of references for the animal because I simply don't see them very often. (Fortunately. I don't particularly want to encounter one...)

I'm mainly posting this because I (finally) took the opportunity to use one of the Schmincke supergranulating watercolors I was posting about a few days ago. All that grainy dark blue that brings out the paper texture is done with layers of Tundra Blue (PB29, PBr7) over the other colors. I think it's especially noticeable when you compare the earthy shore (no supergranulating layer, just ochre - ironically, my favorite ochre is a very cheap one but I love the tone - and some purplish PR102) to its mirror image in the water (same paints, but with a layer of Tundra Blue over it).

hippo-postcard-kl

Materials I used:
JAXON watercolor postcard paper (approx. A6 size)
Copic Multiliner in 0.4 and BM (brush)
Watercolors: BLOCKX Blockx Red (PR254), Michael Harding Yellow Lake (PY180), Phoenix Yellow Ochre (PY42), Nila Colori Armenian Violet Ochre (PR102), Mijello Bamboo Green (PG36), Daniel Smith Jadeite Genuine, Daler Rowney Manganese Blue Hue, Schmincke Horadam Tundra Blue (PB29, PBr7), Rembrandt Spinel Grey (PBk26)
FlySea Acrylic pen, white, fine

Very fast papercut (and, well, paper tearing, because that's a lot of fun as well) made from the giftwrapping paper of today's advent calendar gift from Eleisis, as well as Kraft paper I got from someone else... Because, hey, it's black-and-gold sparkly paper, it should not be wasted! :D I glued verything into an Arteza watercolor sketchbook, which was a gift from Glitzermond. (So, everything was a gift!) Unfortunately, the paper doesn't really like water, but it makes a nice textured background. (I enjoy having contrasting textures in paper art. It's an entirely underrated part of the fun!)

02-Prompt-kl

This one is a papercut card I did send on Postcrossing. Someone stated they like horses, I happen to like horses too, so the decision was easy! Also, it's a very fast work (20 min or something), so I didn't feel bad about giving it away.

horse-m

Papercutting is one of those art forms that are incredibly complicated and slooooow when you're a beginner, but where the working speed increases exponentially with practice - and, of course, if you've ever watched really experienced papercutters, you'll know they'll produce something like this in two minutes or less. (Interestingly, it tends to be faster than drawing the same thing!) Basically, I'm viewing pieces like this as practice. It's cut from one of these super cheap white square note sheets that come in those plastic cubes - you know what I mean. Fixed with spray glue on 300gsm construction paper. Simple, but I kind of like the composition, and I hope the recipient will enjoy it.

This is another one for Postcrossing! I really like getting people who state on their profile that they like handmade postcards - that way I know the effort won't be wasted. (Some people collect only "professional" postcards, and that's fine. I just like to know, so I don't spend an hour on a card when the recipient would have been happier with something store-bought for 20 cents. I don't have the time to make cards for everyone, so I'm limiting that to those who explicitly state they like self-made things.) Anyway, this random person likes frogs and handmade cards, so I did the obvious thing and drew a frog for her.

Frosch-kl

The drawing is, unfortunately, on really crappy paper - I had once ordered a pack of 100 blank A6 postcards on Amazon, and while I received those 100 postcards, and they're not even flimsy or anything (350 g/sqm is a perfectly solid weight), they're kind of the worst of both worlds: extremely smooth (like, smoother than Bristol board) so working with pencils won't work, but buckling when they get wet. :/ The only medium that kind of works on them is acrylic pen. I also used fast washes of liquid acrylic color for the background of the leaf, but that was already kind of risky... I hate these cards, but I feel like I have to use them up somehow. Anyway, I'm getting faster with those small drawings, so, yay?

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Unintentional joke of the day: this guide on how (not) to feed crows. I'm amazed. Among other pieces of pretty useless advice (of which the only pieces that are not incorrect are so obvious they shouldn't need mentioning), it contains this gem:

"
Was dürfen Sie an Krähen auf keinen Fall verfüttern?
Rohes oder gekochtes Fleisch aller Art. Es können darin Krankheitskeime sein, die für Krähen tödlich wirken.
"
(Translation: "What should you never feed to crows? Raw or cooked meat of any kind. There may be disease germs in it, which are fatal for crows.")

I'm... amazed. Like, uh... Has this writer ever met a crow? Do they understand a crow's natural feeding behavior? Like... Do they understand what the euphemism 'feeding the crows' stands for, and why? These birds are not vegetarians. (Hint: they're carrion birds. They eat meat all the time, including meat that has been dead for quite a while, and not stored in a particularly hygienic environment.) It's correct that you probably shouldn't feed them cooked or cured meat (but, who the heck would try and feed processed food to wildlife in the first place, anyway?!?), but, that's because of salt and stuff - I assure you, the meat itself doesn't kill them. Of course, it's also true that you don't have to feed crows with meat (or, really, any other food) because they're smart enough to find enough of that on their own (and also, meat that's hygienic enough humans can eat it is valuable, takes a lot of resources to produce, and shouldn't be wasted like that). But, really - ACKHHHH.

Other pieces of grossly incorrect advice include the suggestion to give them apples. Apples are really unhealthy, and the core with the apple seeds (which, unfortunately, is usually what's thrown to the birds) even toxic for crows. (They're very sensitive to cyanide compounds, even in low concentration - don't give them almonds, either!) Of course, crows are smart enough to just not touch that stuff even if it happens to be lying around... Unless they're starving. Which, in a big city, they're usually not. But, if you're going to feed them fruit - which, again, is a waste, but whatever - stick to berries and other stuff crows will actually eat voluntarily... And keep it to a minimum, because this sh*t is sugar-rich and should not play a big role in a healthy crow's diet. (No worries, though: most likely, they'll just ignore fruit in favor of tastier food, anyway! Trying to get a crow to eat an apple is kind of like trying that with a toddler: Very Unlikely To Succeed.)

And, again: feeding crows, beyond the 'polite' minimum needed for communication with these lovely birds, is pretty unnecessary. Exchanging food is a social thing for them, but, usually (unless it's a particularly bad winter), they don't actually need extra stuff from humans to survive! Also: if you give food to a crow, don't be surprised if it tries to feed you right back... And with pretty gross things, too! XD XD XD Again: they're carrion birds...

We're getting a thunderstorm! And, you know how I know this? I'm hearing the seagulls. They came inland. They only do that when a huge change in air pressure is coming. We don't usually get so many gulls in Hamburg, which may be surprising since Hamburg, after all, is a port city - but, we're far inland. Also, gulls attempting to eat fish from Hamburg's port would die from heavy metal poisoning sooner or later. Gulls are stupid, but not that stupid. They understand the difference between food and industrial waste. So, we don't have a large population of those. If the air is filled with SCREEEEECHHH? Yeah. Thunderstorm coming in. The weather model, of course, still predicts sunshine and a continuation of the current heatwave until at least tomorrow. But, I've found seagulls pretty reliable sources in the past... If they can be bothered to travel inland, they usually have a reason.

The scientific explanation I've read for this phenomenon is that gulls want to avoid being carried out to sea by the wind, but, I've always doubted that, for several reasons:
- Seagulls are pretty stupid (I think I've mentioned in a previous post that they're, basically, feeding machines), but, the North German coastline offers enough cruel and unusual geography to find shelter from a storm, in case a bird is looking for that in the first place.
- For that matter: being carried out to sea for a week or two won't kill a seagull. It's a sea bird. It only needs the coast for breeding ~~and for robbing tourists~~.
- The wind is usually coming from the sea. The only place it will carry a bird is... Yeah. Inland. Speaking as a scientist: dear fellow scientists, you should have been able to spot this... Really. This is not rocket science...
- Seagulls don't look for shelter. (Strategic retreat, what's that?!?) If anything, they'll attack those unfriendly clouds right back, or, at least, give them a warning screech or two! If they don't withdraw at that immediately, it'll be their own fault!

Having met some seagulls... My personal suspicion is a certain combination of laziness and greed on their part. Speaking as someone trying to put herself into the shoes of a seagull: whoopsies, bad weather for flying is coming. Fishing is bad with the sea misbehaving like this, too. I could take shelter now. If I do that, however, I won't be able to find any tasty food while this whatever thing is going on. That's bad! Better get in front of that thing, stay where I can fly and EAT EAT EAT!

M-we2kl

This is a bird I met last Sunday at the beach in Lübeck-Travemünde. This gull (a young one; not older than a year) was not screeching: the soundless open beak is Seagull Universal for 'put some food in there right now'. Also, it got very close, happily hopped around me, and even jumped on my outstretched legs when I was pretending to be asleep. (I wanted to see if it was going to go for my bag. Spoiler: YES. ~~Also, yes, I have thoroughly disinfected everything the bird came into contact with.~~) Not very afraid of humans - just, fortunately, (if only barely) wary enough not to actually directly attack me for my breadsticks. Still, I have no doubt that, if I'd been Some Hapless Tourist (TM), it would happily have let me hand-feed it. Definitely used to humans as a source of good stuff! (It's salivating, too...)

... Oh, by the way: at the time I'm finishing typing this up, it just started to rain. Hooray!

Seagulls 1 : 0 Weather Forecast

I appreciate the fact that these stupid birds are still smarter than the weather forecast. Speaking as a computational modeller, here: if that's all your model can do, please scrap the whole thing and start over... With a bird observation post. ~~Or, for that matter, with just occasionally opening your f*cking window, which is healthy practice even for programming nerds.~~

Seriously. The gulls saw this coming a few hours ago - at the very least! (If you're wondering about the technicalities of that now: a train takes about 45 minutes between this place and the nearest part of the coast. Gulls are fast - surprisingly so - but they won't overtake a train, not even with tailwind ~~and with the shoddy maintenance Deutsche Bahn is doing on the tracks~~. They're also not smart enough to just ride on the train roof. Crows and some exceptionally ~~lazy~~ bright pigeons can do that - there's enough technical stuff on a train roof to offer safe places to hide from the traveling wind - gulls can't. Have I mentioned how gulls are stupid? Anyway, my best guess is, it'll take at least two hours of high-speed gull flight.)

EDIT: Just to be thorough, I'm also adding a picture of a grown-up gull.

M-we3detkl

Cute, huh? (Hint: this one is in a wary stance, like, it's pondering, 'can I just dive on that picnic blanket or is this camera thing in the human's hand dangerous?' It's pretending very hard not to pay attention to me at all, but, it's clearly keeping track of the potential food source very closely while walking around me in large circles. ~~It's also not very good at deception, but hey, seagulls really are remarkably stupid.~~ Spent almost twenty minutes not-watching me until it realized that, nope, no feeding is happening there!)

Extra for

sabotabby, who was interested in what exactly is understood as a "maybug" where I live. Not very good photos because I didn't have my good camera with me (and I was more interested in drawing, anyway), so, no photography award for me, but, uh, the beetle is recognizable from the pictures.

( Cut because I guess not everyone wants to see pictures of bugs... )

As you can see, it's a very efficient destroyer of leaves. Also, because it's so large (this one was something like 3cm), you can hear it munch if you get close enough. (Getting close is very easy: these animals are feeding machines without anything like a flight instinct.) Fun fact: my parents told me that, when they were young, kids used to keep these bugs as pets: maybugs don't mind being picked up and put into a cigar box (they like the dark!) as long as you regularly throw fresh leaves in with them...

Another fun fact: their larvae live underground. They're also very noisy. (Which seems stupid and pointless, but, there you go: maybugs are simply not very smart.) That is, you can't quite hear them, and also not quite feel the ground vibrate, but... Something in-between. Wow, this is really difficult to describe! Anyway: if you're under a tree or shrub with a heavy maybug infestation, and you take your shoes off, you can sense it, somehow.

I don't usually draw animals, but my ATC swap partner wished for one, so. :)

I used my selfmade watercolors, especially Swamp, in combination with some store-bought ones.

I almost never draw animals. :) But here, I was testing a new watercolor paper, so, uh, why not? ATCs again.

Good news: I'm doing art again! I know I still owe cards and stuff to people, those are next; this one was to get me started again! It's fountain pen (the Duke Confucius with waterproof black ink), watercolors and acrylics on watercolor paper.

Winter-Robin-kl

It's a very kitschy robin, and prints of this picture will be my seasonal postcard this year. (There will be handmade cards going out, too, but I can't make hundreds of them. LOL) Anyway... I'm just glad that, after the world's worst artists' block, I was able to produce something again!

If anyone wants to receive one of these postcards, just leave a comment! :) I like sending cheerful mail!

This time, no macabre content whatsoever. I thought, with Halloween coming (and people using cute, innocent bats as spooky decoration - why???) I'd post something positive instead! So this is about rescuing Northern German bats if you find one.

( Bats are really cute! )