Welcome on my homepage. Thank you for your visit.
My name is Otto E. Wieghardt (my friends call me "Lu"). I am from Germany (more exactly from Lüdenscheid in the
Sauerland, the southern part of Westphalia, where it rains frequently
and much). On my journeys in other countries I discovered the canary island of Lanzarote as a "dry alternative"
to my "damp" home.
In the south of this island I acquired in 1980 a ruin and restored the house with the
help of friends. I was living there until 2005, occasionally during the wintertime and in
my spare time, I was drawing and painting. Beside landscapes, which I normally
painted, I started, to illustrate fishes, which I discovered by snorkeling.
It is thought that there are more than 500 different varieties in the sea around Lanzarote.
So I have always found new aspects.
As I have frequently experienced, that visitors in the fishrestaurants
didn't know, which fish they had ordered, (In addition, the fish on the plate
didn't resemble the original shape and colour of the live fish)
I got the idea to collect my pictures
and to make them accessible to other people. Therefore, I started to collate more exactly
the fishes, logged informations from the fishermen-school, ransacked libraries,
went out to sea with the fishermen in order to get more direct experience about
the catch. Also, I discovered under water the more intense colours of the fishes,
I sketched, noted and learnt from seafood dealers and restaurant-owners about
the details of the respective species.
So a fishlist (forever increasing) came into existence with pictures and a lot of
informations, that I have posted as a homepage in the internet. In a
preview you can obtain a first impression. If you want to see more of the
fish-watercolors, click here.
If you get in touch with me or perhaps you want to visit me in Berlin, where I am now living, send me an
e-M@il.