More lazy summer days, and more holiday photos

Well, this week hasn't been much different than last week. My bronchitis still hasn't cleared up and I've spent another week at home resting. I'm really getting fed up with it now. And it's still hot, even hotter than last week, which doesn't help. So not much time in the studio, but I got at least one sketch done. And I've edited some more photos from our holiday.

Back in April, I put together a new watercolour palette with 24 colours. Some I've been using for a while, and some of them were entirely new ones. This is what the new palette looked like three months ago, with all the pans filled with to the brim with delicious Daniel Smith paints.

And this is what it looks now. I'ts quite obvious, well, it certainly is when looking at the box in real life, which colours were used a lot - and which ones weren't. There's not much left of either Payne's Grey or Alizarin Crimson, which I use mixed together as a shadow colour. And I love Sap Green. The only ones of the new additions that I did use where Rose of Ultramarine and Goethite.

It's useful to look at your palette after having used it for some time, and see if there's any changes you might want to make. Maybe a certain colour didn't work out quite as well as you thought, and you might want to swap it for another one. Or you find that there's a colour missing that would be really useful. There's such a great range of paints available these days, in any medium, and it's very easy to get carried away and buy a colour just because it's so gorgeous.

We went on a couple of outings in the area. One trip was to the beautiful Seleger Moor. I've posted some photos from my last visit there back in May, when all the rhododendrons and azaleas, their main attractions, were in bloom. Even though there's not so much blooming at this time of year, it is still worth a visit. It's just a peaceful place to be, and of course there's always the frogs, bees and hummingbird moths.

This gorgeous frog was sitting right in the middle of the path. Perfect for taking photographs. Can you see the mosquito in his back, sucking his blood? Poor little thing. I can imagine how he felt, I've got bitten about eight times while we were there. There's even a little insect sitting right on his nose tip.

For our the last day of our holiday, we decided that we had done enough walking and that we wanted something a bit more relaxing. What better thing to do than take a boat trip. We took the train to Rapperswil and got on the boat for a short 12 minutes journey to Ufenau. It's a charming little island owned by the monastery of Einsiedeln. It has two medieval churches and a restaurant, and you can walk all around the island, with beautiful views of the mountains and the emerald, crystal clear water of Lake Zurich.

We even saw this bussard, sitting on a leaveless branch right above our heads. It kept calling to its mate, which answered somewher in the distance. Just amazing.

Bussard calling from Nordljus on Vimeo.

I will definitely go to this little island again some time this summer. Maybe do some sketching too. For for now, it was time to get on the boat again for the almost 1 1/2 hour journey back to Zürich. We had been thinking about getting off somewhere along the journey, but it was so nice and relaxing to just sit on the boat, in the breeze, and watch the world slowly pass by, so that we decided to stay. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I would have been happy enough to just take the next boat, which was already waiting there, and do the journey all over again.