Winifred Maria Louise Austen (1876 - 1964) - was an English illustrator, painter, etcher and aquatint engraver. She was widely admired and collected; even the naturalist Sir Peter Scott – himself so able a wildlife artist – said Austen was, ‘certainly the best bird-etcher of this (last) century’.
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Another post in my series of short biographies about artists and writers inspired by Nature and the Countryside: Allen W. Seaby (1867-1953), watercolorist, woodcut artist, author, and illustrator.
Allen Seaby was born in London on May 25, 1867, the son of a cabinet maker and carpenter. He studied color woodcut with Frank Morley Fletcher, a pioneer in England of woodblock color printing by Japanese methods, at the School of Art, Reading University. Seaby joined the staff of the University of Reading in 1899 where he became professor of fine art and later head of the art department.
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Gordon Beningfield (1936-98) - Another post in the series of short biographies about artists and writers inspired by Nature and the Countryside and whose works have fostered my own love of the Countryside – especially Birds.
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Charles F. Tunnicliffe, OBE, RA (1901-1979) was probably the best illustrator and bird portraitist of the last century. His work across a breadth of media – watercolour, pen and ink, woodblock engraving, etching and scraperboard – and across a variety of subject matter, has stood the test of time and is widely collected.
If you grew up in the fifties like me you probably read Ladybird nature books and collected Brooke Bond tea cards – all illustrated by Tunnicliffe. You might even have read the Puffin edition of Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter, with its cover and beautiful illustrations also by Tunnicliffe.
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Hugh Brandon-Cox (1917 - 2004) - This post about the Artist, Writer and Explorer, is one of a series of short biographies about artists and writers inspired by Nature and the Countryside and whose works have fostered my own love of the Countryside - especially Birds.
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The art card is probably the most important category in antique postcards. Think of these cards as 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" original high quality prints, which they are, instead of as postcards. Artists could make extra income by selling postcard prints of their work. This booming market drew the very best artists, creating a wealth of quality material unmatched in the art world.
(Composed during the snow-thaw of last month…) As I sit here, goldfinches glance across the skies outside the window, their ‘charms’ like the bounce of iambic pentameter written with wings. They turn towards our garden, and immediately, their syntax becomes jumbled by a shift and gather of chaffinches – with an adjunct of sparrows tumbling in like a hurried conclusion. […] See Also: Our Northen (Winter) Thrushes
I squeezed in 20 minutes of birding (after work) and during the only blast of sunlight we have had all day illuminated the marsh. Soon after the early evening gloom closed the day away and we trudged to the bright lights of Christmas shopping. It was immediately obvious as we walked along the track on No.5 tank […]
As an only child who grew up in the countryside I am used to open spaces and feel at home in the company and beauty of natural things. My favourite books as a child were those which engaged with the outdoors, and which seemed to hint towards an equally rich inner life or territory. As […]
via Belonging and Landscape – when I first read Richard Jefferies — Moments of Place
From winter beaches to summer moorland and woodland, Wales provides essential habitats for waders. There are over forty WaderTales blogs so far. Here’s a selection of ten that may well appeal to birdwatchers in Wales. Winter beaches & estuaries Wales holds important populations of waders in the wintertime – everything from Bar-tailed Godwits from Siberia to […]
East Anglia is one of the best birding areas in the UK; in particular its coast, which is for the large part not greatly built-up and has a fantastic mix of interesting and rare habitats like dunes, reedbeds, lagoons, estuaries, sandy cliffs, shingle and sand spits, saltmarsh, grazing marsh, woodland, heath and broads. I was […]