Barn-swallow

Yesterday, after finishing all my exams for this semester, I finally had time to practice painting again. I made this picture of a barn-swallow:

Exhibition "Abgetaucht"

Last week the exhibition "Abgetaucht", in Hungarian "Merüles", opened in the centers of the Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park in Illmitz and of the Fertö-Hansag National Park in Fertöujlak. It deals with the animals of the park, especially those living under water, which visitors usually are not able to see. I made about 40 caricatures for the exhibition which are shown along more scientific descriptions and fotos. Here are some of my pictures:

 

In the Austrian part, the exhibition's mascot is a crustacean called Daphnia which only can be seen with a microscope. Its main food are algae.

One of Daphnia's close relatives is Arctodiaptomus, the toughest among the small water animals.

 

The mascot of the Hungarian part is the fire-bellied toad, whose eyes have the shape of little hearts.

Unfortunately, many of the lakes "die" due to drainage.

Another part of the exhibition deals with the reed area of lake Neusiedl which is less endagered than the environment of the salt lakes. Here water animals like beetles, pollywogs and larvae still have a good time.

There are also fish, one of them in German is called "Hundsfisch" (dog-fish).

In the past the lake also almost dryed out a few times, so fish had to "wander" back into the lack.

Today the lake is also famous for bathing.

But I would not recommend to drink the water.

Some new sketches with charcoal and pencil

Last weekend I decided to practise painting living birds again, which I hadn't done since the end of my internship in April. Firstly, I just got out of my house to draw the sparrows on my roof, this one for example was made with charcoal:

The next day I accompanied a friend who is helping voluntarily at a place called "Kleine Wildtiere in großer Not" (small wild animals in big troubles). There they look after injured wild animals or young animals which got lost until they can be released back into nature. Here you can find more information about this organization: http://wildtiere-in-not.at/ I was allowed to make some sketches of the animals there:

 Fawn

 Juvenile Black Redstart

 Juvenile Goosander

 Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker