An elephant never forgets...

On Friday I had to bid a sad farewell (for now at least!) to my elephant as after over a month of painting she is finally complete! I made the last few finishing touches to my painting, tidied up some fuzzy lines and generally made more work for myself by smudging areas that had been fine, until it was time to stop. The parade will start on the 16th July at an as yet secret London location, before moving on to destinations across the UK.

And in case you wondered where my pictures of fellow visitors to St James park were here's a family of swans!

A Mammoth Task (the Elephant Parade part 2)

As I mentioned earlier on this month, I've been busy painting my elephant design in readiness for the start of the first UK tour for the elephant parade. It's great to see the design taking shape (and getting lots of compliments from friends, staff at intu (the tour sponsors) and a team of decorators thanks everyone!) Only a week to go and I am nearly done (apart from a lot of tidying up and a coat of varnish).

Lovely to be able to have lunch and walk home through St James Park too, I've never seen the pelicans this close before!

The Elephant in the Room!

A few months ago my design was selected for this years Elephant Parade UK tour. Over the last couple of weeks I've begun working on the real thing, a life sized model of a baby elephant over a metre high, which has taken over a large area of an office canteen space where I'm painting. It's located near St James Park so is as close to Buckingham Palace as I am ever likely to have an art studio!

Although I've done this before (back in 2010) it's always a little nerve wracking being confronted with a giant white elephant.

I soon got over this and gave it a couple of coats of a bright blue base colour, with the help of my assistant for the day Emma (http://www.emmas-graphics.co.uk/) and 2L of ready mixed Homebase paint!

I've made quite good progress, over the last week or so and the background to the design is finished, now onto the more fiddly bits. Here are a couple of work in progress shots...

and some pictures of some of the St James Park wildlife, a hungry squirrel who was briefy considered following me for more snacks and a motionless heron. I'll post another update soon!