Wildlife and Plant Illustrations | New watercolor paintings from my portfolio

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 a lot about the different habitats (a calcareous grassland, an old-growth forest, and a stream valley) and had a great time researching and drawing the different species. This project took several months to complete.

Here’s a video of me showing most of the paintings, grouped by habitats if you prefer that:

Wildlife + Plant Illustrations | New watercolor paintings from my portfolio

Watch this video on YouTube.

Wildlife Illustrations | New watercolor paintings from my portfolio

I have visited all of the areas before and am familiar with most of the bird, butterfly and plant species. Most of the illustrations were done with the help of references due to it being winter, but I intend to go back to some of the areas in summer and actually find and sketch some of the species from life – especially the orchids and butterflies.

You’ve already seen a few of my subjects in the recent sketchbook tours – for this project, I tried to draw as many preliminary studies as I could to get familiar with the species. The illustrations are essentially polished versions of these quicker sketches. They were all done in watercolor and colored pencil.

Drawing reptiles and amphibians is always very relaxing with the patterns and scale textures. I’ve seen a lot of sand lizards around here, but only one fire salamander and never an Alpine newt!

I massively enjoy painting butterflies, and I get never tired of them, even if the tiny patterns are sometimes hard to get right. A lot of patience and a got measurement system helps a lot. I actually learnt a lot about identifying local butterfly species better through this project.

There was a careful selection of interesting and rare plants that grow in the different habitats. Water plantain and flowering rush in the wet areas near rivers, plenty of local orchids in the grassland, and sundew and very old, decaying trees is the old-growth forest.

Of course, German forests have European wildcats. You’ll just never encounter them, they’re very shy.

There is a wide variety of birds in the different habitats. Black storks and different woodpeckers in the forests, insect eaters like the red-backed shrike and the skylark in the sunny parts of the meadows, and the dipper, snipe and the kingfisher near the riverbeds.

Ravens are actually everywhere in these forests, and I’m always happy to hear their croaks.

I think this was my first time actually painting bats.

Painting the dragonflies with their delicate wings was especially fun.

One of the most fascinating beetles is the stag beetle. It was a lot of fun drawing this guy!

And one of the rare and cute small mammals that live in the forest – the dormouse.

You can find all of my paintings in the portfolio section of my website. They’re not in one place but divided into the wildlife, flora and bird sections.

P.S. Totally unrelated, but I definitely want to mention it: I’ve been interviewed, along with 7 others, by artist Gwenn Seemel on the topic of quitting social media as an artist. If you’re interested, please check out her video.