The Artist.
Steph' Thorpe is an artist living in Derbyshire in the English Midlands and has been painting for as long as she can remember!
Her painting of bird reflects her interest in birdwatching which also started at an early age, and has developed into an obsession! She has been interested in seeing as many British birds species as possible, and having caught up with all the breeding species she moved on to trying to see those that are rare and unusual in the British Isles. She is now in the nervous nineties as she closes in on the 500 species seen in Britain.
After showing her sketch books around the birding community she found people liked the idea of owning a page of her sketchbook drawings, however as these are the reference points for the later artwork she refused to sell. She then found that people would buy neatened and finished copies done to A4 size in watercolour, and it is these and artwork like them she is mostly now commissioned to produce.
Another side of her work is black and white pen and ink illustration, examples of which have been reproduced in Birding World and British Birds magazines and are in included the new Birds of Wiltshire book. Through a British Birds illustrating competition she had work in their exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London for several years.
She is particularly interested in the identification of birds and the magic of migration. These lead her to spend countless hours either at her local patches (Ogston and Carsington Reservoirs in Derbyshire) or travelling throughout Britain. She can often be found at Ogston on freezing cold winter evenings wrestling with the identification of the countless gulls species that roost there!
The Work
The paintings are mainly done in watercolour and pencil. Using for reference the sketches and field experience of the actual birds, if this is not available she will work from photograph's, skins etc. But there is nothing to compare to actual experience of the living bird.
Latest Sketches
Latest work in the Rare Bird sketchbook is the White-crowned Sparrow at Cley, only the 4th UK record of this North American bird. Though viewing is difficult as the bird is visiting a private drive visable through a narrow gate, good enough views were obtained to get a few working drawings......Many thanks to the house owners for seeding the drive and not using it!
To The Paintings!
Head over to the gallery in the navigation sidebar to see examples of Steph's work...Please note these are very low quality copies to discourage any downloading etc!
Steph' hopes you will enjoy looking through these. More will be added as time goes on!
Commissioning Work
Steph' Thorpe will take commissions for artwork, contact her by Email on:
artwork at hicking dot plus dot com
Note replace the italics! Spam discourager!
Birdnet Optics
Steph's artwork is also available through Birdnet Optics in Buxton, Derbyshire, UK. Paul Flint keeps a file of artwork in the shop for customers to browse through and buy. He also takes Steph's work to Birdfairs etc he attends, so look out for the Birdnet stand. Steph' would like to thank Birdnet for this and recommends anyone needing books, optics etc to visit them or their website.
Other Hobbys
Please feel free to visit Steph's other site detailing one of her other hobbys...a garden railway! This is an extension of her interest in gardening and the artwork (but this time its in 3D!)....
http://www.freewebs.com/gardenrailway/Her other interests mostly involve wildlife, she runs fairly regular moth traps in the garden to monitor whats happening and is busy trying to photograph all the UK's Dragonfly species (almost there..but they now need transfering to digital as most are on 35mm slide film
) with most of the Butterflies as well!
