Great Gorillas

From  Wild in Art comes another wonderful public art project which supports endangered animals.

Great Gorillas is organised to celebrate the 90th birthday of Paignton Zoo . Funds raised by the sale of the gorilla sculptures will go to support wildlife conservation including the Cross Rivers Gorilla Project.
The gorilla sculptures will form a trail around Exeter and the English Riviera for 10 weeks starting on Aug 3rd.

My design 'Five Minutes to Midnight' aka Smiley has kindly been sponsored by the South Devon Law Firm Wollen Michelmore

The concept for the design is inspired by the saying 'Five minutes to Midnight' from the symbolic Doomsday clock which heralds impending disaster.....in this case the urgency to conserve the endangered Western Lowland Gorilla. It incorporates a variety of clock faces showing the times as five minutes to midnight. The smiley face watch with no hands symbolises hope and action!

Watch this space for work in progress pics and news updates about the project.

Support the Elephant Family campaign

I've really enjoyed creating designs for the Elephant Parade sculptures over the past 3 years and hope to work with them again in the future. I'm particularly pleased that money raised from the parades goes to support the work of the Elephant Family charity to save Asian elephants.

          'Mosha the world at your feet'
which I painted for the Copenhagen Elephant Parade


The Elephant Family help the endangered Asian elephant in a number of ways including preserving the natural habitat of the elephant. Sadly 13 elephant have been killed on railway lines in India in the past fortnight alone and today the charity asked for people to sign a letter to the Indian Railways Minister, to support the call to put speed restrictions on the railways going through elephant habitat.

If you would like to support this cause or help Asian Elephants in other ways please go to
/http://www.elephantfamily.org/what-we-do/campaigns/railways/

Home at last

 

I'm so happy to see Midnight Rose has settled into her new home at Elephant Communications...seen here sunning herself!
http://newsdesk.elephantcommunications.co.uk/news/view/midnight-rose-completes-her-journey-50398

Midnight Rose is off to her new home

It's been great fun working with Guy Bellamy and I'm thrilled that Midnight Rose has gone off to Elephant Communications to be their 'Office Elephant' now she's finished.

Progress on Midnight Rose

I'm now getting stuck in to painting the life size elephant Midnight Rose. She stands about 1.4m high in this sitting position, which is about the size of a 5 year old baby elephant I think. She's ceratinly filling my studio and not leaving me much room to move!

The design is created especially for Guy Bellamy and 'Elephant Communications', http://elephantcommunications.co.uk/ a vibrant new company in corporate and consumer PR, who also support the Elephant Parade's work to help conserve the Asian Elephant. http://www.elephantparade.com/

Stroll Discovery Trails

I was very pleased earlier this year to be asked to create and paint designs on 'life size' sculptures of the Olympic mascot.

These Wenlocks were created for Stroll Discovery Trails, an event produced by Wild in Art for the Mayor of London's 'A Summer Like No Other' festival. The Stroll Discovery Trails event features over 80 sculptures of Wenlock, the official Olympic mascot and Mandeville, the official Paralympic mascot - on display around London during the summer, until the end of the Paralympic Games.

Details of the trails and sculptures are available at http://www.molpresents.com/stroll

 

 

 

My first design was 'Plane Trees Wenlock' and it is on the Purple Trail situated in Berkeley Square Gardens Mayfair, very appropriately amongst the beautiful London Plane Trees.

 

 

The other design was 'Westminster Abbey Wenlock' and is situated on the Red Trail in Victoria Tower Gardens Westminster.

 

The mascot sculptures are all being auctioned for the Mayor’s Fund for London which was set up in 2009 to help improve the life chances and aspirations of disadvantaged children, young people and their families in London. The money will help fund the most effective child poverty projects in London.
I'm delighted that  Plane Trees Wenlock and Westminster Abbey Wenlock have already been auctioned and together raised nearly £18,000 for the Mayor's Fund for London.

Flying Elephant!

The little version of Midnight Rose has flown off to Thailand where the talented local artists hand paint the beautiful replica's. I hope she has a safe journey!

I'm now starting work on the big one, the design is inspired by Guy Bellamy's colourful garden. It incorporates a stylised version of the Elephant's footprint logo of his company 'Elephant Communications', as looped daisies against a pink moon.

Progress pics will appear soon!