Tag Archives: acrylic

Stages of a Leopard Painting by Alison Nicholls

I recently conducted a survey and asked what everyone would like to see more of regarding my art and travels. One request was for more works in progress, and for more about the inspiration behind my paintings, so here’s a brief video about my new leopard painting. It includes the initial inspiration, thumbnail ideas, composition and stages of the painting. It is difficult to video my work as it progresses, because I paint flat on a table. This means I have to place my video on a very high shelf and try to remember not to block the view when I am painting. Not ideal, but I’m gradually improving my video techniques, so watch for more soon.
If you took part in my survey – Thank You! You can see all the results here.
If you haven’t completed the survey yet, you can do so here.
Enjoy!
Alison

Elephants – A Perfect Way To End The Week!

This small 5×7″ acrylic has a Friday evening feel to it… so I thought it would be a perfect way to end the week.

Elephant Delta by Alison Nicholls, acrylic on canvas 5x7"

Elephant Delta by Alison Nicholls, acrylic on canvas 5×7″

It would also make a perfect gift, so contact me if you’d like to know the perfectly reasonable price tag!
Have a great weekend.
Alison

www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

Leopard in Magenta by Alison Nicholls

My first attempts at painting this leopard in acrylic didn’t start well. I soon found myself painting too much detail, painting too many spots and rosettes and whiskers. It is certainly easy to get distracted by detail when painting such an exquisitely marked cat, but detail was not what I had in mind.

Leaoprd in Magenta, painting by Alison Nicholls

A new start was needed, and a bolder approach. Here is the final result – a painting I’m thrilled with. It certainly knocks the spots off my two previous attempts!!

Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

Ivory by Alison Nicholls

Writing about painted images can be as difficult as writing about music. How do you convey one art form in another? As a reviewer I can see that this could be difficult, but as the artist who created the painting, it should be easier. Especially when you start your paintings by writing about them, as I often do. On occasions when an image has not already popped into my head, I start by noting what I want to accomplish with the painting, the mood I am aiming for, maybe even some color ideas, or the conservation message behind the art. For me, words and images are inextricably linked.

Here are some of the notes I wrote before starting Ivory, shown above:
A different view of an elephant. Still needs to show bulk, detail of skin. An interesting composition, with space an important element. Hold your breath as an elephant quietly but impressively saunters by. Limit detail to head and top of trunk. Fade detail towards bottom of trunk. Yellow ochre and blues?

Once the painting is complete, some of those initial notes may still be relevant, but generally the painting will have taken on a life of its own and gone well beyond the (always hand-written) notes. So once again I write about the painting, this time creating a label, to be displayed alongside the art in an exhibit:

Ivory
Original Acrylic on Board, 26×18”
In areas where elephants are relaxed around people & vehicles they will often walk very close. Then you really get to see the size and strength of the animal. It makes me hold my breath for a second. Unfortunately, this relaxed behavior is normally only found when elephants live in protected areas like national parks. In the Maasai Steppe elephants are far more likely to be wary of people due to poaching and incidents of human-wildlife conflict.

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So my question to you is, do you want to read about a painting as well as see it?
Does the text enhance or destroy the experience?

Let me know!

Until next time…
Alison

Art Inspired by Africa and Conservation
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Elephant!, acrylic 20×30″ by Alison Nicholls

Elephant!

Acrylic 20×30” by Alison Nicholls

Elephants provoke strong opinions. Tourists want to see them on safari and usually encounter calm, relaxed elephants in protected national parks, viewing them from the relative safety of a vehicle. However, rural-dwelling Africans are more likely to encounter elephants on foot, outside protected areas, in places and situations where elephants are more wary of, or aggressive towards, people. Children who have to pass elephant herds on their walk to school, or families whose crops are trampled and eaten by hungry elephants may feel fear and distrust rather than admiration and wonder when they see elephants.

Elephant! resulted from a conversation I had with Maasai men in Tanzania, while I visited the African People & Wildlife Fund (APW) for my 2^nd Conservation Sketching Expedition. The men looked through my sketchbook, seeing sketches of people, cattle and homesteads, but their first question to me was ‘are you afraid of elephants?’. The question made me think more about their encounters with elephants and resulted in this painting, which illustrates two contrasting views. The large head on the left of center is an elephant cow, painted in a relaxed pose, with her long, gently curved trunk leading to smaller images of the herd and a safari vehicle containing tourists. The washes of color used on this side of the painting have soft edges and there is a circular flow, down the elephant’s trunk, around the herd and towards the vehicle. In contrast the large elephant head on the right is an agitated bull. His ears are raised and his trunk curled, while his upturned tusks point towards 2 more bulls in similar poses, and a man attempting to keep the elephants away from his maize crop and home. On this side of the painting there are stronger reds and hard-edged washes, while the smaller elephants are angular and facing opposite directions.

Many of Africa’s elephants live or spend time outside protected reserves, alongside a growing human population, and as competition increases between people and wildlife over access to natural resources, human-wildlife conflict increases too. It is African people who will ultimately decide the fate of Africa’s wildlife and determine whether to accept the hazards of living beside Earth’s largest land mammal, so finding solutions that allow people & wildlife to share natural resources amicably is a high priority. Part of APW’s mission statement is to “support the collective management of natural resources for the mutual benefit of people and wildlife” and with the majority of their staff being residents of the local area, they are well placed to assist the community with plans to alleviate poverty, conserve biodiversity and reduce human-wildlife conflict – outcomes which will benefit both people and elephants.

The original acrylic painting of Elephant! is available for sale, priced at US$3200. If it is sold privately I will donate 30% of the sale price to APW. If it sells during an exhibition where the venue collects a commission (usually between 10-40%), APW will still receive a minimum of 10%. Limited edition giclées are also available with a 20% donation to APW from the sale of each piece.

Learn more about the African People & Wildlife Fund.

See my Field Sketches from Tanzania.

Until next time…

Alison

Art Inspired by Africa and Conservation
A donation is made towards conservation in Africa from every sale
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On The Edge by ANicholls

On The Edge
Acrylic on Canvas 24×30” by Alison Nicholls

During my visit to the Painted Dog Conservation project in Zimbabwe, I spent time with Esther van der Meer who was conducting research on the painted dogs (also known as African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus). We spent several days visiting waterholes both inside and outside Hwange National Park while she recorded details of kudu & impala, the main prey species for the dogs in this area. I was only present for a very small part of Esther’s research but I was interested in knowing her findings so after she completed and successfully defended her Doctoral Thesis, she sent me a copy. This painting was based on her work. Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side? Testing the Ecological Trap Hypothesis for African Wild Dogs in and around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

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On The Edge shows Painted Dogs (African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus) leaving Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, and entering the buffer zone – a mix of commercial farms, communal areas, trophy hunting & photographic safari areas which border the park. The right-hand side of the painting represents the national park while the left-hand side represents the buffer zone. The border of the painting consists of the spoor (tracks) of kudu, impala, lion, hyena, people and vehicles.

Painted dogs in this area are choosing to live in the buffer zone rather than in relative safety of the national park. Research has shown that both the national park and the buffer zone contain similar densities of the dogs’ main prey species, impala and kudu but the buffer zone contains more dense vegetation. This results in higher hunting success and shorter chases, leading to better fed dogs and larger litters of pups. Lions and hyenas, which may steal kills, or even kill dogs & their pups, are also less likely to be encountered in the buffer zone. On The Edge illustrates this with consistent numbers of impala and kudu tracks throughout, but more lion and hyena tracks inside the national park (right-hand side of painting).

Dogs use these seemingly sound ecological clues when making decisions about where to live and hunt. As a result they are abandoning safer habitat inside Hwange National Park, selecting territories inside or close to the buffer zone and thereby exposing themselves to increased human activity. This is illustrated in On The Edge by the people & vehicle tracks which are only found in the buffer zone (left-hand side of painting). Dogs in the buffer zone are being snared, shot and run over on the roads at a rate faster than they can reproduce, however they seem unable to take humans and the danger of being near them, into account when deciding to live in or near the buffer zone.

How can conservationists use this research to help dogs survive this Ecological Trap? Forcibly keeping dogs inside the national park would require a fence, which would restrict the movement of other species. Altering the vegetation density and lion/hyena numbers inside the park to entice dogs to stay there, would be a daunting task and would have ramifications for the entire habitat. One viable conservation option is to make the buffer zone safer for dogs and other species by reducing snares, limiting speed limits on roads and educating people about living with dogs – all of which are areas of focus for the Painted Dog Conservation project.

On the Edge was inspired by Dr van der Meer’s 2011 Doctoral Thesis Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side? Testing the Ecological Trap Hypothesis for African Wild Dogs in and around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. 30% of the proceeds from the sale of the painting will be donated to the Painted Dog Conservation project to help make the buffer zone safer for Painted Dogs.

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On The Edge is an original acrylic on canvas, 24×30″, priced at US$3500 excluding taxes and shipping. Please contact me for details or visit www.NichollsWildlifeArt.com to see more of my African Inspired Art, including smaller originals, field sketches and limited edition giclées.
A donation is made towards conservation in Africa from every sale.

Dr van der Meer is now working to conserve cheetahs in Zimbabwe. You can read more about her work by visiting the Cheetah Zimbabwe Facebook page.

Until next time…
Alison

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