The Changing Seasons – July 2020

  It’s time again for the wonderful challenge The Changing Seasons hosted by my dear friend Su from Zimmerbitch! Apart from reading books – (The Cockroach by Ian McEwan, How the Dead Speak by Val McDermid, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, The Near Witch by V. E. Schwab, Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki

Corvid 2020 Weekly Challenge #9

My wonderful friend Tracy from over at Reflections of An Untidy Mind started a lovely new blog challenge nine weeks ago – the Corvid 2020 Weekly Challenge. Here’s a little snippet from her, so you know what it’s all about: “Corvids are birds belonging to the Corvidae family, encompassing ravens, crows, magpies, jays and nutcrackers.

Red-tailed Comet

  The Red-tailed Comet (Sappho sparganurus) is a medium-sized hummingbird. This species of hummingbird can be found in the Central Andes of Bolivia and Argentina, in Chile and in Peru. The genus name refers to Sappho, an ancient Greek poet of Lesbos. The species name sparganus derives from the Greek words σπαργανόω and ουρά, meaning “decorated tail”. In at least part of

Northern Flicker

  Since it was only in my last post that I mentioned it, I´m sure you remember that the Cuban Pygmy Owl is so small that it actually likes to seek shelter in abandoned woodpecker holes. Which is why I felt compelled to paint a Northern Flicker – that, and I really wanted to use

Hyacinth Macaw

  Don´t ask me why, but I´m totally into painting birds these days, so expect to have some feathered friends flying your way in the coming weeks. 😉 This is a water color painting of a Hyacinth Macaw, a parrot that is native to central and eastern South America. With a length of about 100

A Pair of Puffins

  A Pair of Puffins (acrylic on canvas; 30×24 cm; August 2016)   Thanks to cutting back a little from blogging, I managed to finish my latest painting – A Pair of Puffins – that I started a couple of months ago! (Usually it takes a month per painting.) Puffins are one of my very,

True Grit

  True Grit (acrylic on canvas)   There´s a huge vine climbing beside my kitchen window where the bluebirds build their nests every spring. Unfortunately we´ve got a nasty little gang of young magpies as well here (don´t get me wrong, they are beautiful but you´ll soon see why I don´t like this particular group).