A Trip to London – Wildart 2016

Just a quick blog post today….
On Tuesday we headed up to London to visit the Natural Eye exhibition. It was taking place in the Mall Galleries and was displaying artwork by the Society of Wildlife Artists and the winners of the RSPB and SWLA’s Wildart competition – which was why I was there. I was lucky enough to come runner-up, and as part of the prize we got free admission to the art gallery to see the exhibition in a private viewing.
This is the painting I did below:
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It is a watercolour painting on an A3 sheet of paper depicting fox urbanisation – the half of the fox on the left is the rural fox, and the right half is the urban fox. It took me a very long time, so I was very pleased that all my effort payed off!

So we journeyed to London by train in the morning, had  a bite of lunch then headed straight to the exhibition. And after pausing a moment to give embarassing parents a sarcastic stare as they made me pose for a photo outside the exhibition, we entered.
oct-2016-022-large And there my art was, surrounded by a collage of other paintings that were each unique, all wonderful. Some, I have to admit, I liked more than others, but that is simply my opinion – after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I am drawn more to some styles than others.

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I then spent half an hour or so looking around the other artists work (this was the SWLA’s exhibition too). Again there was a lot of variation between artists, each of which had developed their own individual style over time. Some erred more on the side of realism, others took modernistic approaches. All inspired me, and I may well try to do some similar works  at home. You can see some of their excellent work on the SWLA website
Afterwards we popped down to the Aquarium, and saw some amazing creatures. Highlights for me had to be the giant bowmouth guitarfish (a type of shark), as well as the manta rays, the octopuses (yes, it is octopuses and not octopi!), and the seahorses. As well as seeing all these spectacular creatures, you could also learn about their conservation status, needs and efforts. I recommend visiting it if you get the chance – it is expensive but for the amount you get to see it is certainly worth it, and a portion of the profits goes to marine conservation charities.

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