Okavango Delta Aerial

Okavango Delta Aerial

Thursday 31 October 2013

Paseka at play studies



Hot off the easel, as it were... two little oil studies.  

Back to my looser approach with these two and deliberately done as a pair; each on a 8" x 10" canvas board, so painted at the same time to keep the feel, flow and colour continuity fresh (hopefully). 



Both pieces represent Paseka, who was less than two years old when I saw her in 2011... she will now be over four years old and I expect quite a bit bigger with little tusks showing. She was a great little character of the Abu Camp herd and I am aware I have painted her a few times now. She seemed a happy little soul who loved to run around and play, especially with Lorato who is slightly older than her.




Tuesday 22 October 2013

Zebras done!


Finally completed. The location for this scene is the old landing strip near Seba Camp in the Okavango Delta. The pale sandy soil lies starkly against the green reeds and grasses in March, reflecting light back up onto the zebra. It seemed to be a popular place for animals to congregate; perhaps the expanse of clear soil afforded some protection against predators who might use the long grasses to make a stealthy approach. At this time of year water lies to either side of the strip, attracting many birds like ducks, plovers, egrets and storks. On one day I saw zebra, lechwe, wildebeeste, tsessebe, a bull elephant and an eagle flying overhead around the strip area. What a great spot!

Monday 21 October 2013

Zebras on last amble to finish line

Almost finished zebra landscape... has taken longer than planned, but then what's new? Backdrop went well, but zebras have been painted twice due to me not liking the first colours I had done them in. So all change.. that means, as I paint the body before the stripes... I have gone over these darn animals 4 times.. twice for body colours and twice for stripes! The soil got done once, but had a lot of adjustments to get colour and light as I wanted it.... so all that's left now is the blacksmith plovers and a small amount of grass at the front. Hopefully tomorrow will be the final day. Fingers crossed

Sunday 20 October 2013

Reshuffle and Journal added

I've had a little reshuffle of the content of this blog. I have now changed Pages for the Journal I wrote whilst in Botswana. Pages had been added in my last little redesign to be used for information on the exhibition. But I have since felt that maybe this was better to be seen unhidden on the initial viewing of the blog, as it explains what it is all about really. Any consequent news should be done in the general posts. Sometimes you just have to try something to see how it fits and then change it, if it's not quite right.

I took a little computer to Botswana with me, an Asus Netbook.. small and easy for travelling with. The purpose of this little piece of equipment was to write a journal on and send emails back to the UK as there was internet facility for staff use at the camp. As it turned out it was invaluable for storing all my photo's as well.. something I had not planned on, but I couldn't have done without in the end.

I like writing and tend to always write my trip adventures down as they happen and it was particularly important to do so on this trip as I could record thoughts and feelings, information and details about all aspects of my stay to help me remember and reflect on the time there for when I was back home working on the studio pieces for the exhibition.

I shall be adding to the journal every now and again, with each day in sequence. I hope you will find it interesting and transport you to the Delta to share in the experiences I had.

Saturday 5 October 2013

Exhibition news and Pages


Finally I feel able to let you know about the news regarding the venue for the exhibition. The date has been set at around September 2015 and the venue is the wonderful Museum and Art Gallery - Nature In Art in Gloucestershire. Simon, the Director, has been very supportive and enthusiastic about the project and has offered an event that will focus on elephants with my exhibition as the main feature. As yet we are still working on the plans and ideas for this event but it is all very exciting and inspiring. I will update you as details get sorted and more definite. 

I have added 'Pages' to the right hand side of this blog page. The first page relates to the background of the exhibition project which was previously viewed in an 'open box' on the right. I have changed this as it got confused (or more accurately - I did) with my profile and I recently realised that this text appeared on all three of my blogs, which meant, of course, that it did not relate to the other two. So hopefully now things make more sense across all three blogs.

The second page is for information about the venue for the exhibition, and will be updated as details come in.

Elephants For Africa

This is the small research charity that I am working on a fund-raising exhibition for. They have recently updated their website and it  looks great with lots of information and links to blogs etc. They have also added the limited edition print I donated to them (ten prints) to their Art for sale page. 100% of each of the ten donated prints goes to Elephants For Africa.

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Progress on the zebras



The background is now complete and the grasses behind the zebras as good as done, although there is a bit of fiddling to do there yet. Next will be the soil beneath the zebras hooves.....