In this abstract art activity, we will create some beautiful cool and warm paintings which we will weave together to make a completely new piece of art.
Morning Session: 10:00am – 11:30am
Afternoon Session: 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Use this link to explore and book: Children’s Activity Days – Nature In Art
Prices include access to art activity and museum for 1 child and 1 adult ticket to the museum
Using a wide variety of materials, we will create some magnificent wintery scenes through inspiration and our imagination.
Morning Session: 10:00am – 11:30am
Afternoon Session: 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Use this link to explore and book: Children’s Activity Days – Nature In Art
Prices include access to art activity and museum for 1 child and 1 adult ticket to the museum
In this session, we will be using a variety of materials and mediums to create unique and interesting collages inspired by nature. This session is aimed at artists from age 11+. If a parent wishes to join in, please pay for a second place.
Use link to book: Young Artist Hub – Nature In Art
We will get very sticky and messy during this activity where we will create some beautiful, bold Hot Air Balloons with paper mache and tissue paper, which can be hung up once dried.
Morning Session: 10:00am – 11:30am
Afternoon Session: 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Use this link to explore and book: Children’s Activity Days – Nature In Art
Prices include access to art activity and museum for 1 child and 1 adult ticket to the museum
Valerie Dugan
GSBI Annual Exhibition
Founded in 1993, the Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration (GSBI) grew out of botanical art classes held in Cheltenham and Stroud with Michael Hickey, botanist, writer and illustrator for The Cambridge University Press.
For many years the GSBI has held its annual show at Nature in Art. As usual, exhibits this year are varied in style and mediums. All members, whether new or experienced, are exhibiting up to three pieces of their work.
Originals, prints and cards are for sale and visitors are encouraged to vote for a ‘People’s Favourite’.
A number of the Society’s more experienced members have won The Royal Horticultural Society’s Gold, Silver Gilt and Silver Medals or have gained distinctions with the Society of Botanical Artists.
Free to enter, in the Education Centre
Come join us at Nature in Art for some amazing Children’s Easter Holiday Activities! Either outside in our beautiful blooming garden or in our Education Centre, we have loads of great activities to look forward to!
There will also be a FREE Easter hunt which anyone can take part in.
Activities: Easter Crowns, Batik, Friendship Bracelets, Jellyfish Friends and so much more!
Morning Session: 10am – 11:30am
Afternoon Session: 1pm – 2:30pm
£8.00 per child and that will get 1 child activity and 1 child and 1 adult entry to the gallery
Use the link to find more details and book on: Children’s Activity Days – Nature In Art
This is the first time that we have shown a collection of work drawn and painted with raw earth and rock pigments prepared and transformed into paint and inks by the artist.
They are the latest pictures by Fiona McIntyre, whose work has been deeply influenced by living in Scotland, Scandinavia and Spain. She is a founding member of the Arborealists art movement and an elected associate member of the Royal Society of Painter-printmakers (ARE) and an RE councillor.
Recent years have been a revelation for Fiona who has changed her way of working, largely through research and experimentation. So, before committing ideas to paper or canvas Fiona says, ‘I now make my own paints from mineral pigments, some of which I forage, and I gather plants to make natural inks. Having largely rejected synthetically made media, my eyes have been opened to the extraordinary beauty and resonance of nature’s bounty when transformed into media for the artist’.
The project Sacred Earth: Water, Tree, Stone has been a labour of love. The wild landscapes of Iceland, Scotland and Galicia are the inspiration for this exhibition. These locations continue to need protection from glacial melting and erosion, so this exhibition has three themes running through it, based on basic building blocks of life – water (Iceland), tree (Scotland) and stone (Galicia).
She says ‘I spent time walking sketching and drawing in all of these wild locations, witnessing glaciers, pine forests and petroglyphs. These places were at times difficult to get to and weather was unpredictable. However, this is what inspires me to feel alive and excited. I hope that the experiences of being immersed like this in rain, snow, winds and sunshine will be transmitted to the viewers of my art’.
As well as paintings and drawings, visitors will be able to learn about natural pigments and the process of making paints. Fiona says ‘Mineral pigments have a translucent quality, as if capturing the light and memory of the landscapes from which they were sourced’.
The exhibition coincides with the launch evening (April 18th) of a new book of the same name with contributions from Christiana Payne, Professor Emerita of History of Art at Oxford Brookes University and Nicola Moorby, Curator of Historic British Art, 1790 – 1850 at Tate Britain. Copies will be available in Nature in Art’s shop.
See also: Natural Materials Into Paints & Inks with Fiona McIntyre on May 2nd-3rd
Come and join in for some yoga fun and games with our Education Officer! Either in the Education Centre or in our lovely garden, we will be doing some exercises, games, balancing, mindfulness and so much more.
Age: 3 – 12
Yoga mats are provided! Adults encouraged to join in with their little ones.
Make sure you are wearing comfortable, breathable clothing to move around in freely.
Either book online, call in or just ask at the shop if there are spaces available.
Come and join in for some yoga fun and games with our Education Officer! Either in the Education Centre or in our lovely garden, we will be doing some exercises, games, balancing, mindfulness and so much more.
Age: 3 – 12
Yoga mats are provided! Adults encouraged to join in with their little ones.
Make sure you are wearing comfortable, breathable clothing to move around in freely.
Either book online, call in or just ask at the shop if there are spaces available.
Mother of Pearl Butterfly by Phillip Grieve (south Africa. b.1922)
Animal A-Z
Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms, from genes and bacteria to entire ecosystems such as forests or coral reefs. Biodiversity forms the web of life that we depend on for so many things, including food, water, medicine, a stable climate and economic growth.
Over half of global GDP is dependent on nature. More than 1 billion people rely on forests for their livelihoods. And land and the ocean absorb more than half of all carbon emissions.
But nature is in crisis. Up to one million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. Irreplaceable ecosystems like parts of the Amazon rainforest are turning from carbon sinks into carbon sources due to deforestation. And 85 per cent of wetlands, such as salt marshes and mangrove swamps which absorb large amounts of carbon, have disappeared.
The main driver of biodiversity loss remains humans’ use of land – primarily for food production. Human activity has already altered over 70 per cent of all ice-free land. When land is converted for agriculture, some animal and plant species may lose their habitat and face extinction. But climate change is playing an increasingly important role in the decline of biodiversity too. It has altered marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems around the world and has caused the loss of local species, increased diseases, and driven mass mortality of plants and animals, resulting in the first climate-driven extinctions.
climate-driven extinctions.
In response to this, the UN Environment programme has many initiatives, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted by 196 parties at COP15 in December 2022 under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It is a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve ‘living in harmony with nature’ by 2050. It includes 4 goals and 23 targets, such as protecting 30% of land/seas by 2030 and mobilizing billions of dollars annually for nature. The framework was unexpectedly encompassing, and provides hopes for building a new relationship between people, the economy and nature.
Just before the framework was agreed in 2022, the WWF Living Planet Report was released. It estimated a 69 percent average decline in wildlife populations since 1970. A frightening statistic.
So, this display has brought together a special selection of works for each year of the 21st century highlighting 26 animals, one for each letter of the alphabet. Together, they remind us of the diversity and wonder of nature and encourage us to not only celebrate the skill of the artist, but be reminded again, through their work, of the fragility of much of nature in the world today.
Rather than place the diverse exhibits together in one room, the 26 items, both 2D and 3D, will be scattered throughout the museum, to be searched out on an ‘art safari’. Younger visitors can follow a trail to help them discover the exhibits.