The New Zealand Falcon Falco novaeseelandiae or – Karearea (Moari name) – is an endangered bird species that is only found in New Zealand.
Falcons for Grapes is a program that has been established in some vineyards where a pair of New Zealand Falcons is introduced into a vineyard to reduce the damage to the grape crops caused by pest birds. The New Zealand Falcon is a fearsome hunter. Whilst in New Zealand recently we visited Wingspan and saw them up close. Basically every bird in the area went into hiding when the falcon came out to fly!
This is my first attempt at an illustrative approach to drawing birds using Rotring pen. It is on hot-pressed watercolour paper – still deciding whether to add watercolour…
Just a tip about Rotring pens – I was given a lovely set of them but they were not working – after hours with hot water and then methylated spirits was unsucessful , the tutor mentioned cleaning off mistakes from the drafting film that she uses with ‘windex’ – I thought what have I got to lose. Soaked the nibs overnight in some windex and they are all now working perfectly!
Wildflowerings - Art Studio Diary 
Gorgeous pen work!
Never thought of using Windex. That’s an excellent tip. I’ve got a stack of ink-crusted Rotring pens around the place. Seems such a waste to have them lying around doing nothing.
The ones I were given were years old and the ink had been left in them – it looks like a brand new set with the ink put in and never used. The ink was completely dried up and the little ball-bearing inside the nibs were all stuck solid. The illustration tutor spent some time trying to fix them but couldn’t and at $45 a replacement and nothing else working I figured the windex was worth a try! I soaked them overnight and just jiggled the container around whenever I went near them to try and loosen any ink and get the windex in. The next morning after a bit of shaking, the ball bearing loosened up then I used hot water again and shook them around a bit and some bits of dried ink still came out. They all work fine – although the .25 is sometimes reluctant – although I remember the .25 being like that 26 years ago when I had used them at high school…
Thanks ffor writing