Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils

Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer pencils on tinted cardboard. Reference photograph found on google used and slightly modified.

So I went and got myself a set of proper color pencils. I was surprised to find out the art supply store I assumed is supposed to be biggest in our city only had Derwent pencils. And those aren't to my taste. Except for Derweent Drawing, which is soft and precice enough, but consists of only 24 colors - nice earth colors though, unfortunately only 12 color set available here, I have it, love it, but it's not enough - you can't color a sky blue sky with two dusky grayish blues, or fresh green grass with olive hued greens.

I had two options when setting out on my pencil quest, both water color pencils. Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer and Caran D'Ache Supracolor. Latter wasn't available, so I eventually got the Faber Castell ones - fortunately available at a big book store.

Now the logic behind the colors chosen for each set is beyond me. What do people use pencils for? I mean, who needs 4 purplish blues and only one real blue? Finally the 24 color set seemed to give enough usable colors, a set which I then broadened with 6 additional pencils I bought separately (two earthy greens, one flesh pink, one blue and two browns).

I've been playing with my pencils now and quite honestly love them! Though I haven't yet tried them on white paper. First started on black paper, then did the above fjord on grayish tinted paper. Nice change to be building up the colors with a dark base. Haven't yet tried out the watercolor side of these pencils - one step at a time.

Did some horse studies the other day (with some old color pencil). The one above is made without looking at a reference. I concluded it wasn't right, got Ernest Thompson Seton's Art Anatomy of Animals and checked what went wrong, hence the below "study".

This morning I woke up too early, couldn't sleep anymore. So first tried out if I could draw a hoopoe. I guess I kind of can...but not too happy. Have to give it another try to be completely happy.

Then Niuniu...without watching the model. She gets uncomfortable if I draw live, so started this off "out of memory". It's unfinished still. Work in progress. We'll see, when I'll finish it.

It's been a while...but finally, some new drawings!

This is a self portrait. Note my favorite boots, the Rokka rubber boots! Very warm in winter! Keeping your toes warm is crucial, when birding in wintery Finland!

These were actually a part of a farther's day card I made with my little sister, each bird representing one family member. Lil' sister did the rest of the family, I did three. (Yes, the dogs had their own birds as well, sister did those.)

It became a fun card.

Mittens, part 2

I finished the Niuniu inspired mittens!

Again, I asked poor pup to model with the mits.

Here they are. Making up the design as I went turned out to be easier than I thought. I tried designing the pattern on paper at first, but that attempt turned out fruitless - I couldn't perceive how the pattern would translate from paper to yarn. Seeing it evolve straight in knitting was easier - I did have to take some double takes and figuring out the head and ears took some time.

With the second mitten the hardest part was figuring out the correct placement of the "decorative patches of dark yarn", since I wanted the mits to be mirrored, yet identical.

The back side. Except for the striped part, there are two yarns involved all the time to make the mittens more warm. At the top part and thumb this was done using two separate bundles of dark yarn, first knitting one loop from one bundle, then from another, and so on.

Niuniu inspects the mittens. First a sniff.

Then taste.

Then try.

They're fine, let's go!

P.s. The dog was not harmed during photographing the mittens! After I'd gotten the pics and sat down on the sofa to see what I got, she snuggled right beside me to get some cuddles.

Mittens, part 1

I realised with the cooling wheater I need new mittens. Since the stores didn't give any satisfactory results and I knew I had yarn at home, decided to knit the mittens myself. The dog/fox (I think it's Niuniu, hehe) was designed as I knitted along. Now I hit a creative block and am having a hard time decideing what to do with it next.

Day 2 - Fail!

This should be today's pic nro 1, two 1cy (first calendar year, that is birds born this year) whooper swans. But you see, the problem was...the swans. When I took the pic, they were swimming away from the shore. So I snapped a picture, couldn't resist the temptation. And it's quite honestly a bad picture.

This should be today's pic 2, the one of Niuniu. This was an accidental shot - I was looking at Niuniu through the lens, waiting for her to do something worth photographing. And as she started towards me, snap, out of habit, I took the photo without thinking. Not a good picture either.

And at that point I noticed the swans were swimming towards the shore a bit further away. I couldn't resist, so we walked there. They were hesitant at first and swam away a bit. But as I settled to a suitable spot to photograph, they came back close to the shore. With the light coming from behind the birds, I tossed my photo challenge away for a while and concentrated on taking pictures. Lots of them.


More depth of field needed because of the ducks at the shore, check.

Ahhhhh, nice! If only I hadn't had to take pictures through the reeds. And then I realised that Niuniu, who had been playing around on the shore and in the woods...

...was at the shore, looking at the swans swimming past her.

Following paragraphs are some thoughts on my filosophy on training a dog that is a trustworthy and well behaved birdwatchers companion, if not interested, just skip to the rest of the photos at the end:

Now birdwatchers and others as well might critizise me for having my dog loose nearby birds (mallards and swans in this case). Basically it's not a good idea to have a dog loose near birds. Wild birds should not be bothered. However, sometimes I make exceptions, like in this case. Niuniu happened to be loose when we found the birds, and since the birds didn't seem worried about her and she was more interested in exploring the surroundings than the birds, I let her be loose.

I've worked a lot on her obedience. There are few things I absolutely demand from her, and one of these is that she must come to me, when I call her. Period. No buts, no what ifs, no matter what. And she does come, she's even halted a chase after a reindeer at my call. At that point I felt humble and proud, my call being more strong than her herding instincts towards reindeer (her mom is a very talented reindeer herding lapphund).

With rare birds/nesting birds/baby birds/birds that for some other reason can't fly away around I wouldn't take the risk and would have her on leash. Most of the time when birdwatching she is on leash. When I make exceptions, it's only if I consider it safe or consider it safe and a good training opportunity at the same time.

Like today, this was one of those occasions when she could get close to birds and see for herself they're nothing to "woof about", just birds. I was observing the birds' reactions and her attitude all the time, city birds or not, they deserve their peace as well (I think they were more bothered by my presence actually).

Here are some more pics from my challenge fail day.




When we left, the swans and the ducks were still calmly feeding near the shore - swans having accepted even my presence (the silly dog they'd shrugged off as harmless from the very beginning).

I'll keep on trying... If I can survive even 4/7 days, I'll be proud of myself! Apparently at the moment I just can't let a good opportunity or nice birds pass by!

Photo challenge, day 1

Photography has become more and more of a hobby for me lately (no, I haven't forgotten drawing either, I'm just intimidated by brushes at the moment and have been too busy to actually spend a couple of days and nights painting), so I'll be tossing some photos here as well from now on.

As I have the tendency to take hundreds of pictures even during one walk, I decided to follow in the footsteps of my favorite photographer and copy his idea of "one frame per day" as a challenge for myself (which he did for several months one year and the results became an article in National Geographic magazine as well as a book, Chased by the Light). The idea of this is to really have to think what makes a good photograph.

So I'm giving it a try - but only for a week, I don't think I could last any longer. I'll duplicate the week at some point though, to see if anything has changed (other than the season).

Today was day 1 and I took my camera with me for our morning walk. Grayish morning, sun peeking through the clouds every now and then.

And this is the best I could come up with. Well, this "Rosewillow" or "Willowrose" definitely was interesting. I wonder if it has been caused by some fungus. The composition could have been better, much better, now that I think of it.

And... Since Jim Brandenburg didn't have a dog (as far as I know) with him during his "one photo per day" time, I changed the rules a bit - I may take a second picture each day, of my dog, Niuniu. She's got a blog of her own, but I'll have these challenge pics posted here as well.

My "Day 1" efforts seem rather amusing, not much going on in these. I'll be happy, if by the end of the week I'll have one truly special photo! But I am certainly going to have fun - and hopefully I'll learn something out of this!

Time to get back to drawing

Well, this long has been on a hiatus for far too long, it's time to get back to drawing. I have done some drawings and paitings in the meanwhile - some of them having been published in Finnish publications regarding birds - which I'm quite happy about. Nothing too big yet, but still, these little acchievements have meant a lot to me.

It's rather ironical that after having painted the above picture of a lesser white-fronted goose, I've been drawing and painting very little. I worked on that goose for two days, day and night, before I was happy with it. And I still think it's my best painting - even after one year.

One of the pictures for publications has been the above "surinam swallow", a fictional bird I was asked to draw, or rather create, for our areas bird publication. It's time to go ahead and start developing my sketching skills - something I still lack in the field - and overcome my fear of brushes again.

Me and my brushes are back, and so is this blog.