Wildlife Friendly Otley arts festival 2023

This weekend was the annual Wildlife Arts Festival in Otley, organised by local environmental charity, Wildlife Friendly Otley.

^ Artists, Jeanne-Louise and Tim at the Otley Wildlife Arts Festival

Lovely to feel the buzz at the Courthouse and around town. The exhibitions were attracting good footfall and there were a range of talks, workshops and other fun stuff going on around town.

I enjoyed two of the talks, one about rewilding initiatives and one about painting red list birds with watercolourist (and fellow life drawing pal) Tim Gomersall. Check out Tim's work here: he does lovely quirky architectural scenes as well as all his nature work. 

Tim and I both have paintings on display in the main Courthouse exhibition. Tim's watercolours depict 3 common birds that are on Britain's red list: Herring gull, house sparrow and starling. 

^ Artwork by Kim Foley (top left), Nicola Robson (top right) and Jeanne-Louise (bottom 3) at the Otley Wildlife Arts Festival.

My trio is a bit more eclectic. On display is:

• Summer breeze, one of my distinctively textured lavender oil paintings
• Wings of summer, from my series of acrylic plein air bee and bloom paintings
• The snooze, an owl painting in oil that's the most recent addition to my bird collection.

The paintings are for sale and will be on display at the Otley Courthouse for most of October.