Illustration + Nature Sketching
Winter has come here in Germany, and as the leaves have disappeared and the snow is falling, I can do one of my favorite activities again: watching and sketching birds from the window. I find the colder months are a great time to watch birds, they are more visible in nature, and they tend to … Read more
I’m back from my spring break! During my vacation I visited a small zoo – I had planned to do some live drawing, but due to the weather it fell through, I only managed to get some rainy photos. But it was nice to sit down over the next days and recollect. I ended up … Read more
I’m happy to announce that my new class Sketching Fundamentals is out now, available on my website and on Skillshare. This class is a foundational drawing class that will teach you basic sketching techniques. In this in-depth introduction, you will learn how to see like an artist, explore different drawing techniques, create quick sketches from … Read more
I’ve recently finished a big project that I’ve produced a lot of new artwork for, and I thought I’d share a bit about it. All of the pieces were for three different information boards about local protected areas and show a variety of wildlife and plants. A smaller information board shows local orchids. I learnt … Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about psychological well-being, probably because the pandemic is slowly chiseling away a lot of my carefully learnt coping strategies for difficult life situations. It’s a real challenge – especially in the winter months. And yet, every time I put pencil to paper, or hold up my pair of binoculars … Read more
Today I want to give you a short breakdown of how to get started with sketching birds. I’ve already talked your ear off with reasons to start bird-watching and how to get started with birding, so sketching birds could be the next step! Why sketch birds? The short answer to this is: because it’s a … Read more
My 20 year old self would be very surprised to hear this: Birding is a wonderful pastime that I somehow never get tired of, and I see something new each day. I wrote a little ode to bird-watching just the other week as an introduction to this post. So if you want to know more … Read more
Winter is approaching quickly, and with it the leaves are falling from the trees. That means a whole bunch of activities is over for this year – observing bees, butterflies, flowering plants, mushrooms, and many more. Winter just puts its drab foggy hibernation coat over almost everything. Almost, because as every year suddenly I start … Read more
I can see a large walnut tree from my window. Each fall, the local crows and jays find creative ways to get hold of and feed on the walnuts and it’s a lot of fun to watch them. Corvids are highly intelligent birds, and it’s fascinating to observe how they apply different methods to open … Read more
Here’s another one of my bird drawings in ink, this time a raven. I showed how I explore this technique a few weeks ago with the ink drawing of a duck. With a bird that’s all black you have to decide where to put lighter and darker areas, so that you still can show some … Read more
From time to time I like to change my tools a bit and I wanted to try out how I can use my preferred fountain pen ink with a brush. This ink is waterproof, so you can work several layers on top of each other even on drawing paper. What better subjects are there than … Read more
I’m excited to announce that I have a new online course ready for you, it’s called: Nature Journal – Drawing ideas for summer In this class, we’ll take our sketchbook out into nature and sketch the summer. I will share lots of different ideas for drawing in your sketchbook now that nature is in full … Read more