Since Emmanuel was a child, I was wandering with nature. Emmanuel was born and brought up in Colombia, a country of fabulous biodiversity and paradise of nature. The idea of help the planet and do something for endangered species in my country began in my childhood. Walking through the misty Colombian cloud forests, observing birds and plants in my family garden was Emmanuel’s early education. My desire to become a wildlife artist was born around our family home and garden. His observational skills and appreciation of nature came about as he grew up from a child to teenager. We met while we were students at the Art Academy in Bogotá, Colombia. We quickly discovered that we shared many mutual interests – the love for nature, art and books! Wildlife, especially tropical birds and art are the principal reasons of our mutual chemistry.
Interestingly, our art and nature relationship begun with photography before painting. We worked together taking wildlife photos everywhere revealing films and filling albums with photographs of birds, mammals, forest trees, orchids and ferns. We loved macro shots of insects. During our early years all our money was spend on secondhand cameras, lenses, film and books. Our first analog camera was a Canon A1 using black and white rolled film. Art and nature books are our obsession – we would constantly buy nature and art books to add to our growing library.
When we finished the Art Academy, we decided to create an art collection that could support nature conservancy through conducting art workshops, art exhibitions and books. In 2008, ‘Arte y Conservación’ was born in Colombia, and wildlife painting and scientific illustration replaced photography.
One of our first environmental projects was an educational art exhibition composed by 50 miniature paintings “Portraits of Colombian Flora and Fauna in Miniature.” Each painting had a description of the habitat and conservation status. During this time, Paula and I decided to visit Colombian national parks and nature reserves, sketching fauna and flora and taking reference photos for future paintings.
This exhibition was successfully, displayed in four different locations in Bogota. Most of the miniature paintings were sold. Paula and I were thrilled, and then knew our idea of using art was the correct path to promote nature conservation in Colombia. We decide to donate a percent of the sales to our environmental foundation ‘Arte y Conservación’ that supports bird conservation in Colombia. This was the beginning of an innumerable series of exhibitions and conservation projects in Colombia and around the world.
When we give workshops, Paula helps people with the color theory and the anatomy of animals, and Emmanuel help with the scientific drawing and composition. Several times we paint two-hand works, Emmanuel draw and Paula paints.
We are both directors of our project, so we are always aware that everything goes well, and people are satisfied. We operate as a team. In 2006 we were thinking about how we could spread our art and conservation message, and we started a series of workshops focused on scientific illustration, botanical art and wildlife painting. We renovated an old family house surround by 45 hectares on the edge of Bogotá, in a native forest with many endangered species including native orchids and birds.
We currently live in a nature reserve, in a country house on the outskirts of the capital city, where we are surrounded by forests and nature. We also have two donkeys, twelve chickens, two dogs and a cat. This country life taught us to have discipline and increase love towards nature, and sometimes we have visitors and we dictate some art workshops.
From 2006 to 2016 we hosted more than 3,000 visitors from many parts of Colombia, Europe, Africa, USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina. Most of these visitors were interested in or engaged in nature and art projects. Some were professional biologists, artists or early students. Paula is an exceptional artist skilled in pencil illustrations, watercolors and oils. We offered classes of different lengths of time, and we’ve both taught classes, and tutored individuals.
Since 2016 we decide to stop with formal workshops. Now, we just offer a few personal courses. We give only one or two workshops per year with the aim of devoting our attention to book publications. We have self-published most of our books, a few independent books and in partnership with other organizations.
In the last three years we indepently published five books including four limited edition art books “Colibrí”, “Orquidiario”, “Scarpette”, all in the second edition right now. The four books are:
1.“El Espíritu del Paramo” 140 pages
Editorial Monigote
2. “Colibrí” an art-book with beautiful paintings of Colombian hummingbirds
3. “The bird guide of Bogota and surroundings”, is a book that will come out soon
4. “The Genus Phragmipedium By Guido J. Braem”, with some watercolor illustrations made by Emmanuel among others
In the past four years we have travelled to Mexico, Brazil and the United States, and especially to Italy where we participated in several programs, always representing our country Colombia with its amazing biodiversity and fine art.
In June 2019, we hosted a two-day botanical illustration workshop. We have to thank Jordan Kunzel family and Ricardo Toledo Castellanos who have supported us, and we have also learned a lot from them.
We now use digital Nikon cameras for our field work and especially for bird photography.
In the next few years our plans are to increase our audience in other countries, especially in Ecuador where we have great friends and in social networks so that people can get to our knowledge more easily.
We have a YouTube channel, Instagram and Facebook, and we also want to finish our project of artistic residences in Colombia, a beautiful place to paint, in the middle of nature. More projects of books and art exhibitions will come to you soon.
