*watercolor update

On this last day of March I want to show you a little watercolor painting update! I know, I repeat myself, but it's really an ongoing learning experience and I still feel very motivated to go on. Sometimes I have to paint a certain illustration up to three times until I feel satisfied with it, with traditional painting you can not cover mistakes so easily. It happens that my brush accidentally falls out of my hand and lands in the middle of my illustration and messes it up and similar mishaps like that or I simply don't like the composition suddenly or colors react differently as planned. But nevertheless I love the simple act of painting on paper and being off from the screen world. It teaches me a great extra amount of patience. I hope you can end the month in a good way and can welcome April despite the challenging worldwide situation right now!

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*more spring signs

I'm very happy to be able to shoot pictures with my zenit-E again as winter is over and this 44 years old camera is always struggling with cold temperatures. Even though those pictures seem never really sharp, I love the feeling and soft colors about them. It's my favorite camera and I hope I will be able to shoot some more films with it in the future!

I hope you are doing ok and are not worrying too much. Try to make the best of this situation and enjoy the little things in life. There is a robin that visits me every day now on our terrace and observes me as curious as I am observing it.

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*coloring pages

Valentina from Caidrunn Design asked me to be part of her little project where she offers free illustrations on her site to download, print and color in for children in quarantine. Of course I loved to join and so I transformed some of my illustrations into coloring pages.

You can find them on her site ‣ here

Feel free to download and share!

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*spring signs

Some analogue pictures from the first spring flowers that I found in nature in February. 

I started to work in the garden last week, but it got so cold again that it does not really make sense to sow seeds yet. We even had some snow on the weekend! I always get tempted to start pre-growing plants inside around this time, but really, our temperatures are so unsteady here, it's better to wait longer, because then the plants grow faster and stronger. In times like these it's even a bigger blessing to have a piece of garden to not feel as caged when people are compelled to stay inside. Due to personal life circumstances I am leading a "corona crisis lifestyle" more or less since one and a half decade now, so isolation does not hit me so hard. But it hits me when people worry and are overwhelmed and so I do feel a lot of compassion for those who feel trapped right now and are confronted with sickness and death of beloved ones! My thoughts are with you! Please take good care of yourself and try to make the best out of our challenging times!

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*acrylics

Sorry for the absence, I hope you are ok in these challenging times we are facing right now! There are a lot of things to reorganize and rethink and we all have to do our best to stick together to make the best of the situation.

I wanted to show you a little series of acrylic paintings I have done the last month. It is ages ago, that I last painted with acrylics and my fingers were itching to try it out again and so this litte series came into being. I used a limited color palette of three to four colors + white to create a certain mood and to make it not too overwhelming for the senses. I hope you enjoy them!

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*forest moments

In times like these the forest is my safe spot even more than usual. Where I am able to breath deeply and free and feel instant relief. Take good care of yourself, my friends!

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*the last winter days

In the meanwhile winter came to an end, the snowdrops started finally to blossom, I became one year older and my soul a little lighter. The transition from winter to spring feels each time like a rebirth and this is also something one can only truly understand who has experienced the ongoing inescapable darkness of the cold season. It sits in the body and my longing for fresh greens from the garden is huge at this time of the year, so I usually sprout a lot of seeds to make salads, juice carrots or fruits and I started to make a stinging nettle tea cure with fresh stinging nettles from the garden. They are just coming out of the soil, but big enough to cut the little tops to prepare the tea. I sip it throughout the day for as long as it feels right to me and I can only recommend it, especially with fresh stinging nettles. Anyway, I wish you days full of sunshine and spring flowers! Until soon again! 

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*the last misty days

March has started and I feel finally ready to let go of this odd winter. I had my hands in soil again and started slowly to sort some things out in the garden. The storms made quite a mess, lots of dry leaves and twigs all over the garden beds, but first signs of the tulips are showing up, so spring is near even though it will stay quite cold here the next days. We are having so many pheasants this year, I can observe them every morning and I always find their nice big and colorful feathers in the meadows.

I'm curious what this month will bring for us, in any case have a nice start into March!

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