India

I had my first trip to India in 2004. I visited the north-west, around Delhi with my 3 friends, including Bharatpur, Ranthambhore, Sonkhaliya, Corbett, Nainital, Sattal and the Great Himalayan National Park. I didn’t do any sketching back then, it was only a birding trip. I had a lot of inspirations, which ended up in studio paintings. The best bird of the trip was the Great Indian Bustard, which has less than 1000 individuals left in the World. We’ve spent a whole day trying to find them, and succeeded only at our very last stop. The other highlight of the trip was seeing Tigers.

My next 3 Indian trips brought me to Ladakh, could return to Bharatpur and Ranthambhore only in 2016. A friend of mine invited me on a 2 weeks birding trip. I didn’t have much chance for sketching, and realized the need of a small field sketching eqipment, that enables me to do quick sketches whenever I have 5-10 mins during birdwatching with others.

We had increadible luck with Tigers on this trip. Within 20 mins on our first morning safari we had our first cat. Then on our next, afternoon safari, again within 20 mins we bumped into 2 young Tigresses with a freshly killed Wild Boar. Check out my Youtube channel for my video of them arguing over the prey. On our very last morning we met again these 2 Tigresses. We had a fantastic farewell from Ranthambhore.