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Shelduck
Stage 1 This will be an oil painting 48″ x 24″ and on day one I have roughed out the composition in thin oil paint. I will let this dry for a few days before working on it again. Stage 2 I’ve started...
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Black-headed Gull
Stage 1 This is the start of a large oil, 34″ square, of a black-headed gull on the expanse of rippled sand between Lindisfarne and the Northumberland mainland at low tide. To get to this stage took...
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Barnacle Geese
Stage 1 This will be an acrylic painting of part of a flock of barnacle geese coming in to land in a field on the Inner Hebridean island of Islay. On a tinted background I have started to rough in a...
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Gentoo and Bergy Bits
Stage 1 This is the first stage of a painting from my trip to South Georgia. A gentoo penguin waddling up the beach amongst the ice flotsam which has been washed ashore from a glacier. This will be...
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Wandering Albatross
Just in the last half an hour I have started blocking in the composition. I painted a small acrylic rough version (to the right of the easel in this view) as a template because this picture is a...
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Nordenskjold Glacier
Starting the painting This is the starting point of a new painting – a large oil on canvas (1.5m x 1.3m) of a glacier-front in Cumberland Bay East, in the general area of the harbour of Grytviken....
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Elephants and Kings
Stage 1 This is the first stage of a new oil painting – king penguins and elephant seals sitting out a sand storm on the beach. I’ve drawn in the figures in thin oil paint. I use paint rather than...
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The Moultings
Stage 1 This is the first stage of a new oil painting of elephant seals and king penguins at Diaz cove on the south shore of South Georgia. They are all undergoing moult – the seals are shedding old...
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Floating Reed Stems
Stage 1 This will be an oil painting. Having stained the board with a light wash of burnt sienna I have roughly drawn in the basic composition in thin paint diluted with turps. This dries very quickly...
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Robins and Chats
Plate 45 I’m busy working on corrections and alterations to a new book Robins and Chats of the World. This is plate 45 featuring Variable wheatear (Oenanthe picata) and I’ve just blocked in the last...
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Macaroni penguins
Although I don’t normally do commissions, I have been commissioned to paint macaroni penguins for a corporate client as part of their art program. This is the composition sketch (only 13cm x 18cm)...
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Maltese bird massacre
Chris Packham is soon to post a nightly ‘as live’ You Tube diary covering the appalling, Spring slaughter of migrant birds that happens for so-called ‘sport’ on Malta every year. The aim is to raise...
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Undersea Art Award – taking the plunge and a new adventure…
I was absolutely thrilled to be awarded The Wildlife Trusts‘ Undersea Art Award 2015 recently. This award affords me the opportunity to learn to scuba dive and to then produce a series of drawings and...
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Undersea life
Yesterday I took another practice dive at Loch Long on the west coast of Scotland – this time with an underwater camera. I have realised that the restrictions of time, due to a limited air supply, and...
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St Abb’s dive
Last Sunday I had a couple of great practice dives at the famous St Abbs Marine Reserve – a popular UK dive site and only an hour’s drive from home. Although at first the sea was a little choppy and it...
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Diving the Farne Islands with Countryfile
I recently dived at the Farne Islands with the BBC Countryfile film crew and presenter Matt Baker. We were blessed with fantastic weather; the sky was clear and the sea was calm and blue – idyllic! The...
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Diving with seals at St Mary’s Island
Despite an appalling summer for diving I managed a dive recently at St Mary’s Island, just to the north of Newcastle, with my dive buddy Nic Faulks. This is part of the proposed Marine Conservation...
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St Mary’s seals – the big picture!
I have just completed my first big studio painting for the Wildlife Trusts’ Undersea Art Award. This oil painting, measuring 112cm x 107cm, was inspired by the St Mary’s dive I describe in my previous...
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A fish, a jelly and a guillemot.
I’ve recently completed the last of the studio paintings for the Wildlife Trusts’ Undersea Art Award. Inspired by my experiences diving in the North Sea off the coast of Northumberland and South East...
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