Art in Bloom

Welcome to the next project for Elephant Family in conjunction with Action for Children…a very exciting The Big Egg Hunt. To be held in London in spring 2012 there will be over 200 eggs hidden around the capital for you to discover and wonder at the creative excellence of a diverse collection of artists and designers. Presented by the most famous egg creators in the world – Fabergé this promises to be as eggsciting as The Elephant Parade.

Launching on Shrove Tuesday and concluding on Easter weekend there will be online competitions to encourage the Sherlock in you.

So for my part in this great event I started by eggstracting a blank egg from the home of Elephant Family and made it comfortable in the back seat of the car with a little help from our artist liaison Lucy. I then drove very carefully to avoid cracking and scrambling to arrive at the studio in one piece. Much more portable than elephants and tigers which should mean you all have a space in your home for one of these beautiful creations.

As usual I shall be blogging my progress for you to enjoy. Deadline is the end of December so I should get cracking….!

Bigger than you think

Egg en route

Thank you to everybody who came along to the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair at the weekend. It was a very lively show and it was good of the sun to show it’s face on Sunday. A very sad weekend for many people with the Remembrance Services happening all over the country and the two two minute silences on Friday and Sunday.

The weather is now well into Autumn and the colours have been stunning and will continue to be thanks to all the leaves that are still on the trees – inspiration for autumnal paintings. I was in Canada in October and I feel confident in saying that our colours rivalled theirs!

Next on my agenda is the newest event for Elephant Family. This promises to be great fun for children and adults alike – an Easter Egg Hunt happening in London in 2012. I have a design submitted and I just need to collect my egg. There are quite a few eggs in progress by other artists at the moment and as soon as mine is underway I shall get some photos up for you to see and give you more information. Until then….

The news is in – the Jungle City auction at the National Museum of Scotland on Thursday evening raised £400,000 with Jack Vettriano’s Tiger selling for an amazing £60,000. There’s still time to bid for an animal in the online auction – but only just – one day to go.

I was lucky enough to visit the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens to see the animals all in one location and it was a lovely day. I went with Nicky who was a co-artist on Jeffrey (she was responsible for the Tiger bits while I did the flowers) and we had a good look around and visited Harvey Nichols, where you can buy the painted miniatures. Jeffrey is very proud to have attracted the sponsorship of The Sheraton Grand Hotel, Edinburgh.

The animals have now hit the streets of Edinburgh and you can download a map to show you where they all are. Jeffrey is number 39 and can be found in St Andrew Square. I’m looking forward to being in Edinburgh again to see all the different places they have found to locate the animals.

On the Jungle City website you now have access to much more information including artists profiles that show you what the artists look like (!!) along with photos of their animals and a little bit about what we all do and why we do it.

There is also a book of all the animals available from Elephant Family’s ebay shop and lots of other goodies that you can buy for friends and family with all the profits going to this great charity to help lots of endangered species around the world.

Anybody who wants to meet myself and the other artists will find us on ‘Meet the Artists’ day, Saturday 24th September, from 12.00 until 14.00. We’ll be standing next to our animals and looking forward to seeing you all. Until then here’s a few photos to keep you going…..

Jeffrey with co-artist Nicky Duncan

Fragile with Nicky in the Edinburgh sunshine

A news report from BBC Scotland of the Jungle City Launch showing some very British weather….or it could be a very tropical rainstorm!

See Jeffrey the Orchid Tiger in the background of the very first shot (on the right)

Image taken from BBC Scotland news report

And here’s a news report from The Edinburgh Reporter.

The animals are out in The Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. I shall be visiting them on 25th August and in the meantime I’ll post links to news cuttings and photos for those of you that can’t make it to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh spotlight have done a news story with photos

Here’s a very clever tiger from WWF created by Anna Masters

Other artists and their creations

Martin Aveling has done ‘Crocodile Rock’ a Crocodile

Caz Haigh has done ‘Hati’ an Orangutan

Rebecca Sutherland has done ‘Simian’ an Orangutan

Loz Atkinson has done a Hornbill

Gemma Cumming has done an Orangutan

Watch this space for more pictures….

We now have some confirmed dates for the launch of Jungle City, Edinburgh’s biggest outdoor art event. Tuesday August 16th all 130 animals will be unleashed on the Royal Botanic Gardens and they’ll stay there until Tuesday 6th September when they’ll hit the streets of the city.

There will be a day to meet the artists, currently Saturday 24th September (times to be confirmed) and then the online auction starts on 23rd September and runs until 2nd October. So if you fancy one of the animals to go in your hallway keep an eye on the online activity.

There will also be a grand auction at the National Museum of Scotland on 29th September where a selected few will be auctioned live.

The money raised will go to help secure the habitats of some of the worlds most endangered animals - elephants, tigers, orangutans, crocodiles and hornbills.

I will be looking forward to visiting Jeffrey on August 25th in the Royal Botanic Gardens and again on September 24th in the city. I’ll take lots of photos and post them for those of you who wont be able to make it but if you have the chance do go along and participate in this great event.

So Jeffrey left us on Thursday to head firstly to London and then on to Edinburgh. It was a sad day. The studio looks very grey without him and the weather is raining to suit the mood. But I will share some lovely pictures taken the day he left when we took him out into the garden to roam around! If you like the look of Jeffrey and think you have room for him in your garden then do follow his progress on the Jungle City website and participate in the auction that will be happening in September.

Jeffrey standing tall

Jeffrey shows off his Miltoniopsis orchids

Jeffrey turns tail in the Lavender

Jeffrey shows his Phalaenopsis side

Jeffrey in the rose bushes

Three views of Jeffrey's handsome face