Solo Exhibition in the Long Gallery at Oriel Ynys Mon, Llangefni, Anglesey, 10th June-12th October 2025.
Islands hold a particular draw for an artist, where there's water there's light and wildlife and so inspiration abounds!
This project draws inspiration from the much acclaimed countryside artist and illustrator, Charles F. Tunnicliffe OBE, RA, (1901- 1979). Tunnicliffe grew up on a farm in Langley, Macclesfield in Cheshire, he went on to study art in Macclesfield and then won a scholarship for the Royal College of Art in London. In 1947 Tunnicliffe moved to Anglesey where he made the island his home along the Cefni estuary and produced a vast body of artwork which I will be drawing inspiration from over the course of this project. His collection of books will serve as a guide for exploring Anglesey and visiting some of the locations Tunnicliffe drew his inspiration from.
Tunnicliffe was a highly prolific artist who worked with a wide range of mediums including oils, watercolour, gouache, pencil, crayon, woodcut, scraperboard, etching etc. In 1981 the artist's personal collection and studio contents were purchased by the Isle of Anglesey Borough Council. The gallery collection consists of over 1000 works by Tunnicliffe which includes over 300 detailed studies of birds and animals, most drawn from specimens obtained from Anglesey. Oriel Môn also cares for the artist's sketchbook collection - 52 volumes of wildlife, landscape and architectural studies.
To mark the beginning of my project I visited Charles Tunnicliffes home area, Malltraeth on Anglesey and the gallery, Oriel Ynys Mon, where the Collection’s and Buildings Manager Ian Jones very kindly talked me through some of Tunnicliffes work. I was treated to a look through several of Tunnicliffe's sketch books and measured drawings which was a great privilege, I left in even greater awe of his work, feeling both humbled and inspired for developing my own work further.
Charles Tunnicliffe's book, ‘Sketches of Birdlife’ was one of the first bird artist books I had when I was growing up in Cheshire. I've since collected many more of his books, my favourites are the Shorelands Winter and Summer Diary's and the beautifully illustrated Ladybird book series of what to look for in each season.
I've learnt that Tunnicliffe had various approaches to sketching and studying wildlife in the field. He would sometimes work strictly from observation only, capturing only what he could observe as an exercise to study and learn a species. Another approach was to spend time solely observing and committing to memory and then sketching from his head. He would also go back to the studio and produce colour sketches in watercolour and gouache. His measured drawings of dead species also served as exquisite records that were to scale, revealing a rich detail of colour and texture that he could refer to.
Tunnicliffe produced his oil paintings in the studio, he referred to his drawings, sketches and gouache thumbnail designs to develop his larger pieces. He had a wealth of knowledge and understanding of the birds he painted, his memory of an encounter and his personal library of reference material served him well!
Over the course of this project I hope to explore working in oils on a larger scale whilst retaining the freshness and spontaneity of the plein air studies. I also plan to spend more time working on paper producing compositional thumbnails, multiple drawings, colour/ tonal notes etc as a means of gathering more reference material to inform larger works.
This project has been supported by The Eric Hosking Charitable Trust (erichoskingtrust.com)
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