Rain - Bird-watching and saving kittens

The onset of Mallorca's second spring has brought a week of rain. Its well deserved as it hasnt rained in 4 or 5 months. The plants and snails are loving it.

Last weekend, Hannah Bronner (friend and science illustrator ), took me to Natural de S' Albufera, one of the last remaining examples of untouched marsh-land in mallorca. I believe the image above entails the symbiotic relationship between scale insects and an ant colony.
This preserve featured permanent bird-wathing hides. We had Hannah, a local scientist, and heavy duty binoculars to help us identify over 2o different bird species.Hannah, Bruno, Carlotta and Victoria. Poor girls were getting board after hours in the hide.Surprisingly, many of the birds and plants here looked almost identical to ones in Florida.A mud-dripped castle outside the preserve.

On our way back, Hannah and I found this tiny black kitten, extremely bony, in a bunch of thorn bushes on the side of the road. We lured it out with some water in a cap and it drank rapidly. So we decided it had been abandoned and needed our help. Just in case it was going to put up a fight, we returned with some sandwich meat, a net, and a box. After a few awkward moments of it retreating back into the thorns in between each bite of meat, I reached out with my hand and it schmoozed up against it. Then we knew everything would be ok. I picked it up with two fingers and placed it in the box. It didnt meow or struggle. It purred in my hand all the way home.
I dont have pictures of the cat, but heres a video of it leaping around.



Bruno, the girls, Emma (the teacher), and their new puppy "Lucky" on an evening hike to the peek over looking Son MoraguesA hundred year old cooking furnace crumbling in the forest peek over Son Moragues

My new apartment, starting with the bathroom

Beetle project complete

I spent a couple hours chasing grasshoppers when I heard a buzzing noise that I excitedly recognized as a clumsy aeronautical insect, usually a big beetle. As I focused in on it, I saw what appeared to be a large iridescent scarab beetle, trying to get at the sweet fermenting goo inside this pear. But it was too high to get a picture...I had to get creative, i thought about stacking rocks or climbing the tree, until I saw an old fashion pear-picking latter. I climbed up and got two pictures before it flew away, leaving me feeling like i had lost a new friend. Good news is, I had what I needed to start my second illustration.
Color study
Compositional sketch
Final sketch on large sheet of velum, which is then transferred to the watercolor paper via meticulous penciling.
First layer of watercolor.
Four layers on the left, five layers on the pears and about 15 on the beetle.Darkened up the background with 10 more layers and put in the drop shadow on the Beetle. This wouldn't have been possible without the amazing technical assistance of the one and only Marie Metz. Thanks Marie! <3

After Math - Cray-Fishing

This I took of Coco holding up one of the hundreds of crayfish we caught.
After cray-fishing we went for a ride in Bruno's Neon green automobile. (I cant call it a car because it's made out of some kind of soft stryrophome plastic, and it has no doors or windows.) You have to jump into in and hold on as you wind down the steep curves of the road, especially if you have a five year old in your lap. At some parts the road seems smaller than the car itself. Although we look pretty calm in this photo, things get interesting if someone happens to be coming the other way and you have to go backwards with a rock-face on one side and a cliff on the other.
Left to Right: Coco, me, Victoria y Carlota. Brunos daugters. When Im lucky and the girls are in town, we make art together. Last time we made watercolor cards and envelopes.