On Saturday, a day of rain, cold winds, sunshine and hail, I went to the first Wildlife Art Exhibition at St. Tiggywinkles Animal Hospital in Haddenham. I saw several people I know and one lady who addressed me by name and I had to ask where I knew her from, it's been that long!
The Exhibition included acrylic paintings, watercolours, gouache and oils; mixed media, clay, photographs, coloured pencil and collages were also represented, so quite a mix of exhibits.
This bronze resin barn owl, meant to be fixed to a wall or on a plinth, is a snip at 'only' £1450 but when you think of the work which goes into something like this, it's cheap. I'd be scared to have it outside, knowing that thieves will take anything they can sell. If they can shift a Henry Moore sculpture then this would be a doddle. It wasn't easy to take a good photo as the background was always cluttered from any angle.
I like hares with their long ears and connection with the moon, too. I wonder why 'Man in the Moon' when it's so obviously female? Do you remember a book by Kit Williams from,I think, the 1970s, called 'Masquerade' with detailed drawings and each picture has a hare in it in some form. I have a copy somewhere, probably up in the roof. A prize of a jewelled hare was offered to anyone who could solve the puzzle contained in the book. Unfortunately the winner didn't win honestly, as I've just read online. But the pictures are detailed and I used it with different classes of 5 year olds to make them Look and See the hare, not easy in some of the paintings.
I thought this hedgehog was quite clever in the way its prickles have been formed. Perhaps it could be translated into material using prairie points as the prickles?
Owls are always a favourite even though we don't see them often enough. Some years ago an organisation was offering owl boxes but my garden wasn't suitable as there was no open grassy space for the owl to fly over. Now, there's no tree either though there's open grass...
I didn't crop the photo as I thought the frogs were a bit of a giggle. My great-granddaughters used to sing a song when they were smaller -
Five little speckled frogs,
Sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious bugs,
Yum, Yum.
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool,
Then there were four little frogs,
Glug, Glug.
and so on...
Many years ago, when I painted 'all the time', I used to exhibit with Rosemary. She moved away from Naphill and is still painting British wildlife. That was in the days when small, local building societies allowed us to use their windows for our displays (along with Rosemary's friend, Jo) and we used the upstairs balcony rails in High Wycombe's Octagon centre, too. I did at least make enough money to have flying lessons at Booker. Just as well I gave it up with petrol the price it is...
Do you fancy your very own unicorn? Or his friend???
The enclosures you can see in some of the photos house kites in various stages of recovery or those which can never be released back into the wild. There were plenty of kites circling overhead by these enclosures. A couple of ravens were in one space though when they disappeared into their dark 'shed' I couldn't see them as my specs had changed colour outside. The fox enclosure and several ducks dozing on the edge of pond came next but it was, by now, very cold - again - so I didn't walk round any further.
I hope Tigs have another one next year and perhaps the weather will be better.
