Author: Julia | Page 20 | Julia Bausenhardt

How To Paint A Fieldfare In Watercolor – Bird Painting (Video Tutorial)

The fieldfare is a common bird here in winter, and it’s a delight to paint. In this video I share my entire process for painting a bird with a lot of detail. How to paint a realistic bird in watercolor Click on the video to start the tutorial. You can slow down the video (in …

Common European Birds – An Ongoing Painting Project

One thing I’ve been working more on in the last few months is drawing and painting birds. I always felt strangely fascinated by birds, and in recent months I have started to paint them. I was particularly interested in what species are common and rare here in Germany (and in Europe), so that was the main focus of my research before starting to paint.

My Sketchbook in January 2019

It’s time for my monthly sketchbook review. January has been a relatively quiet time for me with lots of work done from home, or close to home. Winter is here and it has simply been too cold to spend a lot of time drawing outside. But I went on a few beautiful hikes when collecting …

Drawing Ideas For The Winter Months

Starting or keeping a nature journal in the winter months may seem counterintuitive, because when you look outside it seems there’s not much there. There is happening less outside and that can be less distracting, and when you focus, you can notice that there still is quite a lot worth observing and journaling about. Winter …

Nature Journaling Ideas For Winter – New Class

It’s finally winter here in Germany and every day I’m trying out new ways to stay creative with my nature journal. I know I’ve written a blog post about with lots of ideas for drawing in winter, and this week I’m happy to announce that I’ve published a new course about the topic, too. If …

My Sketchbook In December 2018

In my post today I want to share some of the sketches in my nature journal from December 2018. I’ve been very focused on drawing birds and practicing getting down bird anatomy, so my nature journal tends to be full of them. My sketches are a mixture of live observed birds and birds sketched from …

Different Sketchbook Styles – Methods For Observing And Drawing In Your Nature Journal

So what do you actually do with a nature journal? When you’re new to this technique, it can be helpful to look at examples and styles that other sketchbook artists use. Here are different methods that you can use in your nature journal. Generally, nature journals focus on nature observations. You work with different elements …

Getting Started With Nature Journaling: Practical Aspects for Sketching Outside (Part 3)

In the third part of this series I want to give you a few practical tips for nature journaling, so that it’s a bit easier to start drawing and actually feels like fun – this is an important point! Read the first two parts here: Part 1: Choosing a Sketchbook Part 2: Assembling Your Sketching …

Getting Started With Nature Journaling: Assembling Your Sketching Toolkit – Choosing Pens, Watercolors and Colored Pencils (Part 2)

In the second part of this practical series on how to start a nature journal, we’ll take a look at pencils, pens and ways to add color to your sketches. Things to keep in mind when choosing tools: Keep it light: if you want to sketch outside, you’ll have to carry your tools. It makes …

Getting Started With Nature Journaling: Choosing a Sketchbook (Part 1)

In this 3-part series, I want to show you how to get started with your nature journal on a practical level. You don’t need a lot of materials, if you’ve made any kind of art before, you probably have already all of the supplies. Part 1: Choosing a Sketchbook Choosing a sketchbook can seem difficult, …

How a nature journal can help you to experience nature and get better at observing and drawing

I wanted to show you how my nature journal is coming along after a few weeks of regular sketching. A few thoughts about my decision: I had been thinking about starting a visual journal on this blog for a while. I like the thought of documenting my artistic journey in a chosen field and to …

How To Start A Nature Journal – Sketchbook Techniques For Nature – New Class

I just published a new class about sketching in nature, and learning to observe and draw. In the class, we’re going to start a nature journal, or nature sketchbook. If you love art and nature and would love to connect the two, then a nature journal is a great thing to have. Or maybe you’re …

Starting new habits

In the last few weeks, I’ve thought a lot about habits. I used to write a lot for this blog, but in the last year it didn’t really find a place in my schedule. I made a book, moved, learned a lot about illustration, started to publish new creative classes online (which has been wonderful), …