The Berlin Dome

Berlin has got three Domes or cathedrals – the French Dome and the German Dome on the Gendarmenmarkt, and the Berlin Cathedral. This big church which was inaugurated in 1905 now serves as a place for protestant services and music events.

 

Sony Center, Berlin

How can you forget 88 photos on your camera? Well, I did. My friend Karen visited me in 2014, and of course we had to visit the Sony Center in the middle of Berlin. That was in July 2014. A lot of things happened after that visit, and I completely forgot my camera and of course – the photos on it.

With spring having arrived in Berlin and all the beautiful flowers in full blossom I thought I might like to take a few photos of the awakening of nature around me, noticed that I had to refill the battery and that there were 88 photos on the camera waiting to be downloaded. Here’s one of them. It is the roof of the Sony Center in the middle of Berlin, the Potsdamer Platz. There are places in Berlin which you go to only with friends from outside Berlin – and there are places which you go to even on your own. The Potsdamer Platz belongs to the latter category.

Floral Fairy

I used my watercolour pencils and my markers on cardstock paper. So I had to transfer the print from Dover publications with my provisional light table, and doing this, I simplified the drawing a bit. The fairy, the tulips and the leaves are coloured in with markers, the ground and the background are coloured in with Mondeluz watercolour pencils.

Hooded Skull

I thought the guy needed a colourful hoodie, so I grabbed my watercolour pencils and my waterbrush and provided him with the hood. Fun!

The butterfly and the J

This is a free colouring sampler page from Dover publications. I transferred it to cardstock paper (while simplifying it a bit), inked it and then used my markers for the blossoms, the leaves and the letter, and my watercolour pencils with my new waterbrush for the background.

Due to the fact that you can determine pretty well the amount of water in the waterbrush you can work with it on cardstock paper. I haven’t used my watercolour pencils for more than half a year and found out that I lack some violets – especially blue violets. Well, isn’t that a good reason to visit an artstore?

Playing with my stabilo Greens and the Waterbrush

A few days ago I treated myself to a waterbrush made by Caran d’Ache, and of course I had to try it out with my Stabilo 68 pens. I am quite excited about the waterbrush – I am definitely having more control . It is easy to handle.

The little red flower

Yesterday I bought a water brush and used it instead of a normal brush. I must say I’m quite pleased with it!

In this piece I used my stabilo 68 pens, some of my polychromos coloured pencils and – for the blue background – some watercolour pencils as well.

Fire and Ice

When I did this I had an image in my mind – red, hot lava running down the ice to the into the sea.

The Lady of the Sea

I’m still fascinated by my stabilo 68 pens. You can use them wet and dry. When using them wet it is a bit like using watercolour pencils with a brush – you have to be careful how much water you load on your brush. The more water you take on your brush the more are the single colours flowing into each other – which can be a nice effect if you want to create a background.

All colours of the rainbow

This painting has been done with Stabilo 68 pens used as watercolour pens. I watched a video a few days ago telling me that you could dilute the ink of the pens with water, and as I am a very curious person I just did that. The Stabilo 68 pens can be bought in almost every paper store here in Germany for a very reasonable price. I like the vivid colours you get when you wet them, and how you can vary the opacity.

I mixed the colours on the paper – however I heard about another method of colour mixing: use an acrylic surface, scribble on this surface and then use it as a kind of palette.