Monday, March 31, 2008

Exhibition at The Heron Gallery

Goodness me! Has it been a month since I last posted! Time to rectify that....

I have at present three framed originals and four unframed originals in the World Wildlife exhibition at the Heron Gallery in Weston-Super-Mare, UK. Proceeds from this exhibition will go to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

These are the three framed originals...


'Claus - Up Close' - Batik; this piece was inspired by Claus, the silverback at Bristol Zoo Gardens. He was a very handsome male gorilla and had a lovely face. Sadly he died some years ago and now an equally magnificent male called Jock rules the roost on Gorilla Island at the zoo.


'Zebra Foal study' - Pastel; this little fella was one of the foals we saw in Amboseli in 1999. The reference I used for this was based on some video footage I took at the time and backed up by numerous other zeb foal reference I have gathered over the years. The video gave me the idea and basic form, but was hopeless for anything else as the quality was poor. Hence all the other reference material to help me with colour, details and textures. The foal was sat on dusty ground and grass.... I decided to leave out the grass and go for muted colours and a simple backdrop and foreground to emphasise this restful moment in this little chap's early life.


'Beneath the fever trees' - Oil; again, inspired by the 1999 trip to Kenya, only this white rhino was in Nakuru National Park - a beautiful park with some fabulous scenery. It was one of my favourite places on the trip.



These are three of the four unframed mounted originals....


'White faced whistling duck'


'Magpie goose #1'
'Chinese water dragon'