What’s On

May
10
Tue
Small but Perfectly Formed @ Nature in Art
May 10 – Jun 12 all-day

Exhibition:Small but Perfectly Formed2

This is Nature in Art’s first ever exhibition of stereoscopic (3-D) images, first invented in 1832 and now enjoying a revival.

You will be able to borrow some of our 3D glasses and go on a journey through the micro world, seeing things, as for the first time, in their true three dimensional form.

Discover a whole new way to see and enjoy the beauty in nature.

Small but Perfectly Formed will be on show until June 12th.

May
28
Sat
The Wildlife Art Society @ Nature in Art
May 28 – Jun 5 all-day

Exhibition:TWASI 4

The Wildlife Art Society International annual selling exhibition of wildlife art comes to Nature in Art.

Around 300 paintings, drawings, original prints, photographs and sculpture by professional and part-time members of this active organisation will be on display, the majority for sale.

Members of the Society will also be demonstrating throughout the exhibition.

The exhibition is FREE to attend *normal admission charges apply to view the museum galleries* and is on show until June 5th.

Jun
11
Sat
Detail in Watercolour @ Nature in Art
Jun 11 @ 10:00 am – Jun 12 @ 5:00 pm

Art Coursewatercolour
with Jackie Garner 10am – 5pm
Maximum Participants: 12

This 2-day course will focus on producing detailed paintings of natural objects such as feathers, seeds and shells, using a pure watercolour technique.
We will cover working with layers of colour, wet into wet, and lifting out colour to create texture, pattern, iridescence and form.
Course Cost
Members: £80
Non-members: £100
Course Suitability: Absolute Beginners – Improvers
ART COURSE BOOKING FORM

 

Artist’s Profile
Jackie Garner trained at Medway College of Design before becoming Nature in Art’s first education officer. She is now a professional artist who specialises in portraying wildlife, taking inspiration from encountering wildlife in its natural habitat. Jackie teaches and lectures regularly, and is a contributor to Artists & Illustrators magazine. She has exhibited with many art societies, including the National Exhibition Wildlife Art, the Society of Wildlife Artists, BirdScapes Gallery, Royal Institute of

Painters in Water Colours and has held solo exhibitions in London and Gloucestershire. Jackie is the author and illustrator of The Wildlife Artist’s Handbook.
Jackie is happy to discuss the course with students. Visit her website for contact details: www.jackiegarner.co.uk

Jun
14
Tue
James Osborne Exhibition
Jun 14 – Jul 24 all-day

Exhibition:Tiger Osborne

This display is a celebration of the work by James TA Osborne RE (1907 – 1979) who regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers.

He was well know for his experimentation with print and paper and leaves behind a varied body of work, examples of which are held in public and private collections internationally.

Now extended to 24th July.

Jun
18
Sat
Art Gecko ceramic gecko on a realistic base @ Nature in Art
Jun 18 @ 10:00 am – Jun 19 @ 5:00 pm

Art Coursegecko
with Jill Moger 10am – 5pm
Maximum Participants: 12

This 2-day course will start with a discussion about the importance of the presentation of a piece of wildlife art produced in clay. All of Jill’s ceramic animals are presented on an appropriate and realistic base and you will be constructing your very own for your piece on the first day.
On day 2, you will model a realistic gecko. Jill will teach you how to hollow out your clay sculpture and the different ways to finely model features and texture skin. She will also talk about the various glazes and how to apply these and she will bring an example to demonstrate on.

If students have an available kiln to fire their finished piece they may wish to take it home but if not, Jill will take the work back to her studio in York, dry it, glaze and fire it and return it to Nature in Art a few weeks later for students to collect.
Course Cost
Members: £80
Non-members: £100
Course Suitability: Beginners – Improvers
ART COURSE BOOKING FORM

 

Materials List
Please bring a full apron and any small tools that you might like to experiment with on clay.
All other materials will be supplied by Jill Moger, at a cost of £10 per participant,
payable directly to her on the day.
Please note: for those who wish Jill to use her kiln to fire their finished piece, an additional charge of £6 will apply, payable directly to Jill on the day.

Artist’s Profile
Jill is an established ceramicist of many years’ experience and her subject matter is wildlife but with a particular emphasis on reptiles. She uses stoneware and porcelain clays to create finely detailed work which is fired in an electric kiln up to five times to enhance colours and lustered glazes.
www.jillmogersculptures.co.uk

Jul
2
Sat
Painting for the Petrified
Jul 2 @ 10:00 am – Jul 3 @ 5:00 pm

Art Coursepainting
with Richard Box 10am – 5pm
Maximum Participants: 12

This course is for all of you who long to paint in watercolours but have been deterred by the erroneous myth that they are supposed to be ‘difficult’. Richard will dispel that myth and teach you, step by step, how to paint a simple still life and achieve marvelous effects with numerous layers of translucent colours without ‘getting mud’!
Most problems about painting are concerned about mixing colours. So the course will start with exploring the nature of colour with coloured pencils.

This will give you the confidence to transfer your newly discovered knowledge to watercolours. If you follow Richard’s ‘recipes’, you will be thrilled at what you can achieve.
Course Cost
Members: £80
Non-members: £100
Course Suitability: Absolute Beginners
ART COURSE BOOKING FORM

 

Artist’s Profile
Richard is an artist who paints and draws, but who is also known for his textile work. He has been teaching for 51 years and has a missionary zeal to convert students’ terrors of drawing and painting to an enthusiastic desire to continue practicing these disciplines because of their discovery that they are calming, rewarding and therapeutic.
www.richardbox.co.uk

Jul
9
Sat
Mosaic Garden Birds @ Nature in Art
Jul 9 @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Art Coursegoldfinch(2)
with Yvette Green 10am-5pm
Maximum Participants: 8
Garden mosaics are designed to interact with their environment, reflecting and refracting light so that they change throughout the day.
On this 1-day course you will produce a stained glass bird mosaic which can be used to brighten up your garden or pot plant in the winter months. You will be able to make a bird of your choice .
Skills covered on the course will include mapping out your initial design, basic glass
cutting, stained glass mosaic techniques and grouting techniques.
This course is ideal for all levels, although glass cutting skills are a bonus.

Course Cost
Members: £40
Non-members: £50
Course Suitability: Beginners – Advanced
ART COURSE BOOKING FORM

 

Materials List
Apron
Sealable jar or container to take home grout powder if needed.
All other materials will be provided by Yvette Green, at the cost of £6 per participant, payable directly to her on the day.

Artist’s Profile
Yvette Green is a stained glass mosaic artist working from a small house studio based in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
Yvette trained in Botany and Education before working in mosaics for the last 8 years. She works primarily with stained glass and glass inclusions and produces mosaics for all areas of the home, specializing in garden mosaics.
Her work is inspired by the intense colours of nature. She has taught a number of courses in the Gloucestershire area.
www.baobabtreemosaics.co.uk

Jul
16
Sat
Demystifying the Digital Camera for Nature Photography @ Nature in Art
Jul 16 @ 10:00 am – Jul 17 @ 5:00 pm

Woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) sat on a rusty horsehoe - captive animal, trapped nr Newbury, Berkshire. ca.1990.

Art Course
with Mike Amphlett 10am-5pm
Maximum Participants: 12
If you still haven’t read the camera manual or, if you have, but cannot comprehend much of the ‘jargon’, then this 2-day course is for you!
On day 1 Mike will run through the menu systems and settings of your camera, particularly those that are of most concern to new users, but specifically focusing on those settings which are of most use to those working with natural subjects. He will also cover how to use different lenses/focal lengths to best effect. There will then be time during the afternoon to practice what you will have learnt about menus and settings, followed by a Q&A session.
On day 2 Mike will add some more ‘depth & breadth’ to what was covered on the previous day. Weather permitting, you will be able to start taking some images using the experience you will have gained from day one. After lunch, there will be the opportunity to have Mike review and critique what you will have done and, suggest ways in which you might improve your technical and creative abilities.

Course Cost
Members: £80
Non-members: £100
Course Suitability: Absolute Beginners – Improvers

Adult male Dunnock (Prunella modularis), perched on an old fence post. Nr. Cholsey, Oxfordshire. April, 2009.

ART COURSE BOOKING FORM

 

Materials List
Notebook and pens
Your camera and accessories and, most
importantly, your camera user-manual
For both days, laptop PCs would be
extremely useful
Mike Amphlett will provide course handouts for you to keep.

Artist’s Profile
Mike has been photographing since 1978, beginning with insects for his work at Oxford University’s Zoology Department – he then ran the department’s photo-unit until 1991. In 1982, he was seconded by the RSPB as field-assistant on a film about Pink-footed geese in Iceland. In 2004, Mike moved to digital and, in 2005, acquired his first D-SLR. 20 years of tutoring photo-classes helped him understand the often simple things which prevented many camera users from progressing. He is a good listener and a patient instructor.

Jul
26
Tue
Aspects of Tunnicliffe @ Nature in Art
Jul 26 – Sep 4 all-day

Minolta DSC

Exhibition:

This exhibition has been assembled in collaboration with the Charles Tunnicliffe Society. We record our thanks to them, particularly Ken Broughton and Stuart Pittman, and to the many private collectors and public collections who have loaned work. Tunnicliffe was one of the most important and influential nature inspired artists of the twentieth century. His impact is still felt today.

Charles Tunnicliffe (1901 – 1979) was the only son of a shoemaker turned farmer and grew up in Cheshire. All his later work as an artist shows him to be a man totally familiar with the animals and machinery of the farm, and the beauty, customs and modesty of the countryside. After art training in Macclesfield and Manchester, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London, where he won another scholarship for a further year to study etching.

Having worked for a while as a part-time teacher, Tunnicliffe left London in 1928 and returned to Cheshire as a commercial artist. In 1932 he produced the illustrations for Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter which was a great success and established the reputations of both artist and author.

From 1947 until his death Tunnicliffe lived on the Isle of Anglesey. He was hard work and versatility personified. Etchings, wood engravings, scraper-board illustrations, oil paintings, delicate pencil drawings, simple tiny composition sketches and large finished watercolours – all were part of his prolific output.

He was elected RA in 1954 and awarded the OBE in 1978. In 1974, he was honoured at the Royal Academy by an exhibition of his collection of measured drawings of birds. Several of these (and other RA pictures) are included in this show.

Having had work widely published in magazines and books, including some of his own, as well as the likes of Cussons Imperial Leather advertisements, Brook Bond tea cards, The Radio Times, Ladybird books and for 12 years the covers to RSPB’s magazine Bird Notes, he is an artist whose work has impacted on countless people’s lives, earning respect too, not just in the wildlife art world, but the wider art establishment.

Sir Peter Scott described him as simply ’the greatest wildlife artist of the twentieth century’.

 

Jul
30
Sat
Complex Colour Layering @ Nature in Art
Jul 30 @ 10:00 am – Jul 31 @ 5:00 pm

Art CourseBlack Parrot Tulips
with Ann Swan 10am – 5pm
Maximum Participants: 12

In this 2-day course you will learn how to create deep, vivid but clean colours without compromising the form of the plant. You will be able to say ‘goodbye’ to muddy colours, as Ann will show you how to choose accurate colours for layering and shading without losing the brilliance of the colour.
You will also learn in which order to apply techniques such as resist, underpainting and embossing and the importance of planning your approach to coloured pencil work.
By the end of the course you will be able to use the techniques demonstrated, to tackle
multiple coloured and textured plant material with confidence.

Course Cost
Members: £80
Non-members: £100
Course Suitability: Beginners – Advanced
ART COURSE BOOKING FORM

 

Artist’s Profile
Ann is an internationally acclaimed botanical artist and teacher, passionate about drawing and the use of coloured pencils for botanical portraits.
She is also the author of ‘Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils’. With four RHS Gold Medals, she is an accomplished teacher always evolving and incorporating new techniques into her work which she is happy to share with her students.
www.annswan.co.uk