From the 7th-8th of December I attended the workshop ‘Painting the Alla Prime still life’ run by Lizet Dingemans at the newly opened Raw Umber collective and art studio in Stroud. I felt that learned a great deal about colour theory and how to apply that to physical painting so I enrolled myself at the next workshop ‘Oil painting for the serious beginner’ run by Ben Laughton Smith to continue the development of the skills I had aquired in the first workshop
Westonbirt Arboretum
I went to the arboretum on the 3rd of the November to photographically capture the shape, texture, pattern and natural vibrant colour of the autumn trees and leaves. Westonbirt Arboretum has a fantastic collection of rare and colourful trees from around the world that are a great resource for inspiration.
Liberty bird of prey centre
I went to the Liberty Bird of prey centre in Ringwood, Dorset in June/July 2019 to inspire me for my upcoming MA Illustration exhibition ‘LUCID.’ I took two trips within two weeks each focusing on a different aspect of the varied birds of prey.
For the first trip I focus on capturing the birds in standing positions through observational drawing and photography. I used this trip to become familiar with the shape and anatomy of the birds in stationary positions. I used photography to capture accurate and life-like colour palettes for the species of bird I was focusing on.
On my second trip to the bird of prey centre I focused on the birds mainly through photography trying to capture the movement of flight, the Caracara above being a outcome of this. I relied again on observational drawing, but let it take a back seat to photographing as I was looking to create a large archive of imagery to come back to if I ever needed it.
On the whole both trips were incredibly important to my research, the outcomes of which I still use today, and I highly recommend visiting your local Bird of Prey Centre to study live animals.