Three Postcard Paintings: Sketchblog

Painted these two days ago, to send to relatives.They're on watercolour postcards - I picked up a tin in a sale. The paints are acrylics though, because I keep forgetting that my watercolours are ancient and too solid to use. I should buy more... I recently bought some better brushes - so much worth it.

The fieldmouse is from a photograph in the book Minibeast (Hand-Made Habitats) (which is an out-of-print but very good book about setting up projects and things in schools/gardens in the UK). The whiskers are annoying - too thick, but that's too late to change. Long Tailed Field Mouse, or Wood Mouse Apodemus sylvaticus

The fish is a discus called Wanda that was swimming around over my head when I was looking around for something else to paint. It's a bully, and male,  the largest in the tank. Also my flatmate's favourite ;D

And this is a black stilt (Himantopus novaezelandiae), or Kakī (Maori name). They're delicate, graceful little birds that are also endangered, in fact they are the rarest wading bird in the world. I remember studying them at University - attempts at handraising them, and the methods of doing so. They tend to stand on one leg, and hide the other in their feathers.


The mouse is my favourite and so has gone up on DeviantArt