Birds

I do use photographs of birds as reference, but I prefer to paint from a specimen, which is why I seem to have a number of reference paintings of dead birds.  A commission of a painting like the partridges (12 by 18 inches) would be about £1,500 but I will often include the preliminary sketches as part of a small “commission archive”.

The paintings of specimens are from the bird-skin collection at NHM Tring, many of which are of great historical significance.  Many of those I have painted were collected by Emin Pasha and James Jameson who were in East Africa in the second half of the 19th Century.  Although they never met, Jameson went on a disasterous expedition led by Henry Morton Stanley to rescue Emin Pasha.  He got caught up in a tragic incident of cannibalism before dying of fever on the Congo river on his 32nd birthday and his reputation has never recovered.  For more information about the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, the men and their collection, please go to that section of my website.