eller

A page in a black sketchbook that was a gift from CaitlynMurphy. In case you're wondering why I work with art supplies I got from other people so often: I'm such a ridiculous level of 'social learner' I'm not just more motivated but literally learn more art when the stuff I'm using has some connection to another human being. So, sending stuff back and forth it is. XD (I'm not actually gaining anything financially because I also send stuff to others. I'm learning to draw better this way, though. Buying the same sketchbook for myself would be useless.)

In this case, the white Posca blotched. Badly. I used the large ink blots to create large sunlit areas so it looks kinda-sorta intentional. (I hope.) XDD

Continuing in the little sketchbook from antaresnox.



I filled a blue double page with magnolias. Various black fineliners, Faber Castell PITT brush pen in "sky blue", white Pentel gel pen. :)

These ATCs are for a swap that challenged us to use new materials. So, I used some things from my advent calendar and from Christmas. :)

Michael Harding watercolors and Schmincke opaque white on paper from a Paul Rubens watercolor sketchbook (hot pressed, 300gsm).

Another postcard, though maybe I'll not send this one out quite yet... I think this will stay on my desk until I've decided what to do with it.



The thing is - I'm happy with the design. Very happy. These kinds of extreme contrasts and psychedelic color choices make art teachers very unhappy (speaking from experience) but are quite characteristic of my style, which is also my way of perceiving the world - so, I like how this looks. It's just that, in hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the placement of the leaves in the background. (It was a very fast drawing I made in the botanical garden in Klein Flottbek that was never supposed to become a "serious" painting.) Basically, with only some tiny adjustments (also when it comes to less squiggly lines), this could be a much stronger composition. So, I'm seriously considering a remake of this one, and if it turns out nicely, it may actually go into print.

Everyone, look at this, yhlee made me a sketch book! (To fully admire the craft that went into binding the book, look at his journal entry with more pictures and descriptions how it was made.)



The chess position on the cover isn't random - rather, it's the end position of my favorite chess grandmaster game ever, Tal - Hjartason, 1987. I squeaked when I unpacked the mystery package and saw this diagram! (It's the kind of super-weird position that, uh, has a lot of recognition value.)



The back cover is chess-themed, too. :)



And the book holds a selection of different papers in different colors! YAY! I knew some of them, but others were new to me, so I couldn't wait to test them all! The book is suuuuper fun to use, and for dmonstration purposes, I decided to show the first page of each paper section, with the picture I painted on it. Recently, I've mostly sketched with black and white acrylic pens and my watercolors, so that's what I've used here as well.

( Behind a cut, because hey, these are a lot of pictures. )

As you can see, I'm enjoying the book a lot already! :D It's not full yet, but... Only a matter of time. ^^°

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.



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?

So, I've decided to cut the chilies I've shown you up and get the seeds out. I'm going to plant some of them. If anyone within the EU also wants some chili seeds, just tell me - I'll gladly send you some! I can not guarantee that the seed is varietal, as they were grown on a balcony with, like, twenty chili varieties, so it's going to be more of a gardening experiment resulting in some spicy food, I guess. As you know, I don't believe in wasting stuff. Unfortunately, I can't send to the US or other continents (I checked); the issue is not the postage but the legal situation. (It's illegal to send plant seeds to almost anywhere outside the EU.)



Basically, the plan is to let the outer part of the chilies dry and use it for cooking (it's enough to last us the winter) and to plant as many seeds as feasible. I'm definitely going to plant the black ones - they taste great! They're very hot but also have another taste that's kind of difficult to describe. Very interesting! I also want to plant the little red ones that look very innocent (almost like berries) but are, like, suuuuuuuper hot. (I accidentally touched my nose after handling them. Ouch. LOL) Also, I really like the yellow one, which is somewhat (not very) hot but also very fruity. (Actually, I'll suggest to my boyfriend to use that one in the pumpkin casserole. It's going to be perfect for that!) I don't like the green ones as much - nothing wrong with them, just, they're Jalapeños, and I'm generally not a fan of those. The long red ones seem to be the "normal" ones that you also get in the supermarket or in powdered form. Not sure if I'm going to plant them - again, absolutely nothing wrong with them, they're just a bit less interesting than the others. But, yay, I enjoy having a new little project!

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!






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.



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!)

I don't have much time for drawing these days, but at least I have two new entries in my sketchbook, one from last Sunday and one from today! :)



Last Sunday, friends from work decided (relatively spontaneously) to take a trip to Hamburg, and, because I happen to live there, I met with them in the park. (Planten un Blomen, nicest source of interesting botany around here.) They also brought their art supplies! Well, they wanted to do some watercoloring, but that was rudely interrupted by a water show that got everyone (and, worse, everyone's paintings) wet. XD I was not actually productive, but the bench we sat on was surrounded by lovely yellow tulips, so at least I was able to fill a page with those.



Today's page is rhododendron with (not-very-friendly) guests! :) I was taking an afternoon walk with my boyfriend, and, as usual, he had to be very patient while I examined the local shrubbery. It's a year for maybugs: these huge beetles that appear every four years and eat everything green in sight. The one I drew here, on the bottom of the page, was able to finish the whole young rhododendron leaf while I was drawing. I was impressed! (Also, until today, I didn't know these things even eat rhododendron, which is not a native plant they'd be adapted to. They usually prefer beech mass destruction! But, apparently, they really just like anything and everything green...) The rhododendron was also being attacked by others, like the snail I also drew here. Poor rhododendron.

Help with identification? The incredible thing happened: unknown plants two days in a row. If anyone recognizes this thing, please SCREAM!

EDIT: This turned out to be Kerria japonica, thank you so much for the identification, mific!

I was pretty lazy today, art-wise, but while my boyfriend was standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner, I decided to take a little walk and take my sketchbook with me. Maybe I'd find something interesting? And, sure enough, someone in the neighborhood has a very pretty yellow flowering hedge. From afar, I thought, sure thing, that's going to be a Potentilla, how nice!, but when I came closer... Uh, what's that? The leaves are all wrong! (You can see how the leaves stood in the drawing below, I have reproduced one of the shoots of the hedge as accurately as was possible in the short time - about 40 minutes). But, we're still somewhere in the Rosaceae, aren't we?!?

Basically, I'm very confused. Actually, we are in the Rosaceae, so at least I was not totally off, botanically speaking?!?



On the art side of things, I'm quite happy with this page. This time, I didn't just take the same pens I used in my sketches from yesterday, but additionally used a grey marker (Faber Castell), and it's incredible, the difference a few shadows can make! Everything looks much more detailed, even when it isn't really. XD