Aurelian Books is pleased to host a gallery of artists specialising in the art and illustration of butterflies and moths. Only a glimpse of their works can be shown here but links are included and you are welcome to go to their websites or make direct contact. For those who have published books all can be purchased from Aurelian books by clicking to British lepidoptera and then Art & photography.
Valerie Baines has drawn and painted as long as she can remember and finds much inspiration in the countryside around. She went to Harrow Art School and the Royal College of Music, and then became a designer in the studio at Sandersons, where an aptitude for design and flower painting was essential.
Valerie's paintings have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, the Royal Horticultural Society, the Linnean Society, the Museum of Garden History, and annually with the Society of Botanical Artists among other venues in England; the Hunt Institute of Botanical Painting at the Carnegie Mellon University, U.S.A, the Botanical Gardens of the Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada, and at Le Jardin des Cinq Sens, Yvoire, France.
She has illustrated over ten books concerned with natural history, including The Naturalist's Garden and The Story of Silk by John Feltwell, and Mindful of Butterflies by Bernard Jackson, butterflies becoming something of a speciality. She illustrated all the British butterflies in Glorious Butterflies published by Butterfly Conservation to celebrate its 25th Anniversary.
Contact: www.valeriebaines.com
Bryan's life-long passion for art and nature is reflected in the romance, beauty, and exceptional originality of his paintings and drawings. He has a special interest in butterflies travelling widely in Britain and overseas for ideas and inspiration to create new pictures often with unexpected or unusual artistic and compositional features.
Born in Coventry he was deeply influenced by the wartime devastation and as a young child moved to several different homes where he had close experience of the countryside. In his early teens he gained a scholarship to Coventry College of Art after which he graduated to St Martins Art College. His career as a graphic artist took him to New York, Canada, and various European cities. Between assignments he managed a 10 year stint as a professional footballer!
As a member of Butterfly Conservation he has provided illustrations and promotional artwork for the Society and branch activities. He has exhibited widely and recently had a very successful one-man exhibition at Haslemere in Surrey.
Contact: www.bryanceney.co.uk
Jane studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design, achieving a Diploma in Foundation Studies, and then moved to Loughborough College of Art and Design where she received a Certificate in Design Embroidery, being awarded a distinction.
Since leaving college she has worked professionally as a textile artist. She has held numerous exhibitions, has her work held in private collections, and has undertaken significant commissions, three of which are on public display. Jane's work has been featured extensively on TV and magazines.
In 2007 Jane published her first book entitled The Art & Embroidery of Jane Hall Reflections of Nature. This superbly illustrated book combines her art, prose and photography magically intertwining her exquisite work as a textile artist with the natural world that has inspired her. Imaginary but life-like images of butterflies and moths are especially prominent in many of Jane's creations.
Contact: www.clothofnature.com
Cath Hodsman is a skilled and widely acknowledged British wildlife artist. She is also one of the most technically accomplished and accurate natural-history artists, specialising in entomology - and as such the Natural History Museum, London, sells her work; Bloomsbury Publishing in London have also dedicated a Blog to her work as an artist, on their ‘Writers and Artists' blog, to help inspire other up and coming young artists. Cath is also a member of the elite Wildlife Art Company .This is an exclusive art agency set up by Mark Carwardine , BBC Zoologist, to meet the high demand for top quality natural-history illustrations. Some of the best natural-history artists across the world are with this agency, in order to guarantee top quality work.
Cath aims to achieve 100% anatomical accuracy in her work and as such is directly influenced by the work and ethos of the great Aurelians, such as John Curtis. Like Curtis, she uses her skills in painting and drawing to educate and enlighten. She also has used her art to champion conservation causes across the natural world. Through her artwork, she has been involved in many important conservation projects ranging from saving critically endangered beetles in Slovenia, helping save threatened British flora and fauna with The Species Recovery Trust, to establishing a 7000 sq mile Scottish Wildcat sanctuary in Scotland.
In addition, Cath runs fascinating insect painting courses, often using microscopes. These are aimed at keen amateurs, professional experts or even for young budding entomologists and conservationists of the future....... As such, she runs fascinating entomological arts events in universities for undergraduates students and at wildlife venues for younger children. Her aim is to bring the secret world of insects into the visible world, where we can all appreciate them for the amazing and important creatures they are.
Contact: cathhodsman@talktalk.net
Richard is one of Britain's foremost wildlife illustrators. He studied graphic design at the Berkshire College of Art and has specialised in natural history illustration since leaving in 1971. His paintings of insects have appeared in numerous field guides and academic works, and he has also designed and illustrated wildlife stamps for countries such as Fiji and the Seychelles.
His paintings depicting British, European and tropical butterflies are unrivalled in their accurate detail and lifelike colouring. He contributed the illustrations of all the life stages of butterflies in The Butterflies of Britain and Ireland by Jeremy Thomas which won the Book of the Year Award in 1991.
Richard's work appears in many other titles including The Butterflies of Jamaica and South Florida 1994, Collins Field Guide Butterflies of Britain and Europe by Tom Tolman 1997, Dragonflies and Damselflies by Steve Brooks 1997, and Philip's Guide to Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland 2007. He was author and illustrator of A Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland 2003. A massive undertaking was his meticulous artwork for the Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul Waring, 2003, and which contained some 1600 illustrations of macro-moths.
Contact: rlewington@btopenworld.com
Born in 1953 Richard Tratt is a painter of British landscape and wildlife. As a young boy, he developed a consuming interest in natural history with a particular fascination for butterflies and moths. He began painting in his tens and attended Northwich College of Art, Cheshire and Dartington College of Art, Devon (1970-1974).
Richard spends a great deal of time observing and sketching his subjects in their environment. Most of his wildlife paintings are finished in the studio, but much of his landscape work is painted outdoors. Working mostly in oil on canvass, Richard became a full time artist in 1979 and was elected a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) in 1981 and a member of the Society of Botanical Artists (SBA) in 1986. His work has been exhibited both in Britain and overseas where he has a wide following.
His paintings are highly evocative of the British countryside often combining sweeping views with foregrounds of colourful flowers, lush vegetation and butterflies in the sunshine. Many of these pictures are beautifully illustrated, along with all the British butterflies, in his book Butterfly Landscapes published in 2005.
Contact: www.richardtratt.co.uk
