Exhibitions down, Weddings done, hopes up.

Both of the recent group shows that I’ve been in have now come down. My dear sister currently has my prints from the British Wildlife Art Exhibition in her car as I was too shattered after coming home from Wales on Sunday to pick them up! It was a busy but wonderful weekend. A dear school friend got married to her lovely long term partner. She’s a birder like me and as such her wedding venue was chosen appropriately!

The Welsh Wildlife Centre is just outside of Cardigan and they have numerous bird hides about the place where you can see all manner of lovely birds. We didn’t have long to spend and still managed to see many blue tits, chaffinches, starlings, a half tame crow and a little egret! We also saw a lesser spotted woodpecker in the garden of our b&b, run by a lovely man called Godfrey (and his spaniel, Sally). We were well looked after in this fab little place which is as eco as possible without being worthy. Godfrey is a lovely, caring man who loves the area and all the living beings within it deeply. While I don’t necessarily agree with all his approaches, I loved his passion and sincere attachment to the Teifi Marshes and the area as a whole. Plus, he sent us on a fantastic little walk! It was such a beautiful morning. a really good time to take stock and study the landscape, slow down and recognise those songbirds that I love. Of course, I liked the half tame crow the best. Just as an extra link, the photographer who did the wedding was seriously shit hot. He doesn’t use flash, he’s a man after my own heart photography wise: Krystal and Neil King’s Wedding

It’s made me think about how these birds (Corvids) live along side others that we recognise as ‘more beautiful’ ‘more interesting’ and ‘sweeter’. I’m starting to focus on all the anthropomorphic associations that we make with birds (and animals more widely, but that would be getting ahead of myself) how we see some as ‘cute’ ‘sweet’ ‘cunning’ ‘evil’ ‘adorable’ etc. Now, don’t get me wrong, I adore birds. They are fascinating and wonderful creatures and I use those words without any association. They are literally fascinating and wonderful. But I know birds, I know that the Robin Redbreast can be a vicious and violent defender (or invader) of land, I know that Starlings are incredibly competitive over food and I know that Rooks and Jackdaws live in large family based communities and are actually quite, caring, to each other. (there’s safety in numbers and Corvids are great team players when it comes to defence) Crows and Raven’s are more solitary, but they do ‘partner for life’. It’s these thoughts and theories that I’m going to try and tackle in my new body of work. I want to hold up each association and examine it from my own visual perspective. I’ve got some stuff to look up and some drawings to do.

I also took down the work that I had up in the WOODSHED exhibition at the School of Arts at Oxford Brookes today. Here are some better photos of the work, so you can also see the hanging method. I wasn’t entirely happy with these (the left hand one, in particular, I put it up as a last minute decision and it didn’t have time to relax out of it’s curl) I hang them off 2inch box steel so they ‘float’ away from the wall, referencing the feather.

So. I’m pretty happy with these drawings, but I think that if I am still going to draw using this method, that I need to find a way to scale it downI want to find a scale that I can use that is more accessible to everyone, that can translate through different display methods and on different types of paper surface too. I’ll have to work on it. If anyone out there has any suggestions on scale for these drawings, then let me know. I’m a bit lost at the moment!

Once i’ve picked up the prints from the BWAE exhibition, then I will take some better photographs, but for now, a little taster of those too. I sold a small mono print of a Rook – I guess I should make some more of those too!

For now, that’s it. I’ve gabbered enough. Please recommend anthropomorphic papers relating to birds if possible!

Please feed the birds.