How LIFELINE started
My training in scientific illustration has always been the basis of my work. Attention to detail, scientific accuracy, scaled drawings, microscope work and informative illustrations. Having then had a long career in fine art, developing my mediums, brushwork and composition, I have aimed to create work that described the beauty of nature. Gradually though, I became disillusioned with just painting pretty pictures of purely aesthetic value. I wanted a larger purpose. So, I decided to incorporate natural and environmental science with storytelling. The new concept turned into a series of paintings called LIFELINE – The Art of Natural Links where the images are linked with timelines, lines of interdependency or links of life and fate.
Research
Basically, it is important for me to emphasise the research. Since I was about sixteen years of age, I filled sketchbooks with my observations of nature. These have become a vital research tool in my work and when I am in the field, I sketch continually. For over twenty years I have used Pink Pig sketchbooks with recycled paper, they are versatile and tough enough to stand my fieldwork yet very lovely to look at. I sketch with a fibre-tipped pen, usually a fine nib like a 0.1 and add watercolours as I go.
Sketching in the field is essential, forcing me to observe everything closely and enforcing speed. Field sketching also includes measured drawing of plants, tracks and specimens. When back in the studio, the sketches provide a very fresh reference. For me that brings back a sense of place, far stronger than a photograph.
The paintings
The first LIFELINE painting had to be African wildlife, a theme I keep returning to after many trips to Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania and I have suitcases full of filled sketchbooks with reference.
It happened to be a lion piece, I decided to show not just the lion, but also what it was seeing. So, I linked the images with a line, the first LIFELINE in any of my paintings.
The LIFEINE 1 and 2 paintings are about the purely ecological links, how nothing in nature lives in isolation. If we remove any one species, we break the natural links of survival and human activity is the biggest reason why so much wildlife is on the brink of extinction. Humans tend to forget that we are part of the natural order of life.
LIFELINE 3 had been brewing in my head for three years when I was invited to Tanzania as one of nine international artists; the Artist Ambassadors Against Poaching. The shockingly real poaching crisis is an ongoing threat to our wildlife. For this painting I wanted dramatic impact, so a life size elephant skull we found in the bush creates the drama. To emphasise the story, a rock hyrax is posing on top of the skull. Genetically, it is the mammal closest to the elephant, so the painting is called ‘The Last Elephant’.
For the 4th piece I changed my palette to the Far East, to Japan. After a lot of research, I settled on the red crowned crane as my conservation subject, this time directly depicting the human relationship with rare birds. I used Japanese colour symbology to help tell the story. As I completed the piece, a thought kept ringing in my mind: If we can’t save a revered species like the red crowned crane, how will we ever preserve the unpopular, but equally important ones, like insects?
LIFELINE 5 again took me back to Africa and elephants. News was out that scientific research proved that man had a big hand in the extinction of the mammoth. Through hunting of course, the parallel of today’s events is evident. Cave paintings are our only remaining depictions of these creatures, so I felt a need to create my own painting of human relationship with elephants over time. The handprint is, like the cave painter’s signature, my own.
LIFELINE organisation and education
Although I knew the paintings were now developing in the right direction (and receiving much attention and recognition), I decided that I needed to do more than just paint, I wanted the paintings to have direct impact on conservation awareness. For a large audience. The result is a non-profitorganisation called ‘LIFELINE – The Art of Natural Links’. Its aim is to highlight pressingly important conservation issues by combining research expeditions, ScienceArt, media and education.
The LIFELINE organisation is fortunate to have the support of a distinguished patron; biologist and conservationist Dr. Ian Redmond OBE. A team of media experts produce film documentaries and we have a group of special advisors, expert scientists, conservationists and indigenous experts to ensure that all of our scientific facts are accurately portrayed. Eco-education packs are produced after each expedition and sent to over 70 schools in Africa, Madagascar and South America.
I have always done field research, but its importance is now paramount. The aim of the LIFELINE expeditions is therefore to research conservation issues around the world to analyse the reality of conservation situations from all angles.
Oman and the return of the Oryx
The LIFELINE expedition to Oman last year covered the four main ecosystems; stony desert, sandy desert, oceans and mountains. The team set out at the Al Wusta Oryx reserve, by kind permission of the Office for Conservation of the Environment and the support of the Environment Society of Oman and our outfitters Arabica Orient Tours. Our objective was to see for ourselves the magnificent Oryx in their natural habitat and to research their story with the field biologists and the Bedouin expert rangers who work with and defend them. Once extinct in the wild, the last animal was shot in 1972 in Al Wusta. The program to breed a few remaining captive animals was started in America and eventually brought them home to Arabia. The original reserve at Al Wusta was the size of France, an area that was impossible to defend against poachers and the decision was taken to sensibly reduce it to a manageable size. As it is today, it is managed (it is still the size of Luxembourg…) and giving the best protection to the now thriving herds. This is a rare example of a wonderful conservation success-story.
The resulting painting is LIFELINE 7, telling the story of the Omani Oryx.
The coastal wildlife and plastic pollution
In the Bar Al Hikmann reserve the team was able to research the unique marine life of the area. Oman has four of the seven species of turtles, a unique clown fish and the Arabian Humpbacked whale as well as amazing birdlife and great reptiles.
However, plastic from the Indian ocean is a problem and five dead turtles and a whale amongst loads of plastic bottles, bags and nets on the coast brought home the issue. This is a global problem that urgently needs to be addressed.
So, despite the abundance of amazing wildlife, the plastics issue stuck in my mind and the resulting painting is LIFELINE 8 – ‘The Ocean’. (The triangle in the painting is the old alchemic symbol for water. The formula across it is the chemical symbol for a plastic used in most bags and bottles). The only way to positively impact the pollution, is to immediately stop adding to it. Every piece of plastic has a name on it, we are all responsible.
Wildlife in the desert
The team spent a period in Sharqiya Sands, a vast area of sandy desert. It seems devoid of life during daylight but in the morning the multiple tracks all around camp, reminds you that we are not alone. The tracks of side-winding snakes – probably horned vipers, foxes, birds and beetles told the story of a busy night. The tiny yellow scorpion blending into the sand, is one of the top three most lethal scorpions in the world. They are becoming more active in March/April so the hospitality of the Outward Bound Desert Centre became a necessary refuge for our desert studies.
The resulting painting took its inspiration from the desert plants and the tracks in the sand. LIFELINE 9 specifically looks at damage to the fragile desert crust. This is not only an Omani issue, but a global one in all desert areas. Off-road driving or ‘dune bashing’ for thrills and the grazing of increasing numbers of goats and camels, damages the desert crust. This causes a dramatic increase in violent sandstorms. Sandstorms have always been part of the ecosystem; the Amazon Rainforest relies on iron and phosphorus from the sands of Sahara. Now however, we are creating an imbalance in nature. The increasing amount of sand moving globally adds to the desertification and smothering of coral reefs, especially in the Caribbean. And due to increasing pollution, the sand carries bacteria and viruses with it. That includes influenza, meningitis, foot and mouth and black ringed fungus (which kills brain coral).
This 9th painting is still in progress and when completed, I hope it will create an awareness to think twice before deciding to drive off-road in any of the world’s dry ecosystems.
lein-air
A painting technique I find very usefulvis Plein-air painting. It means painting outside. I use small 8×10 inch panels and acrylics (which dry fast in desert conditions). Each Plein-air painting should only take an hour. After that, the sun has moved, and one keeps changing the light. A hopeless task! So, I stick to the one-hour session. Painting in the field gives me much better colour matching than a photograph and helps to bring life to a later studio piece. In each location of the Oman expedition I produced Plein-air paintings.
LIFELINE education
LIFELINE has a strong educational element. The team brought university students with us to Oman and continue to give presentation lectures and shows. Recent lectures have included Natural History Museum in Muscat and at the British chapter of the Explorers Club in London. LIFELINE also puts on major exhibitions at the Nature in Art Museum, UK.
A key element of the education project is our schools programme, LIFELINE Schools. We have 70 international schools registered with us from Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Uganda, the UK and Honduras. They receive free school ecoeducation packs that we create from the research of each expedition. The recent school packs cover all aspects of the expedition to Oman. They include art projects and literature as well as practical tasks including recycling and the planting of trees. LIFELINE Schools cater for all standards, including schools who can’t provide any materials. Learning about Oman in Africa or South America, creates a much-needed web of cross-cultural learning and appreciation. Students of all ages are provided free LIFELINE education material to promote inclusiveness and the appreciation of our nature and diverse cultures.
It is up to each of us to make a difference to preserving life for the future. Our LIFELINE philosophy is, that ‘if you understand, you will also respect’.
