Friday 19th September

Andy takes fantastic photographs and posts them under the title “Andy Fairhurst Photography”. He Recently visited The Mercer Falconry Centre at Coton in the Elms near Swadlincote in Derbyshire and took some really great shots of the birds of prey there. It got me thinking about my 75 bird sketches I have languishing in a crate in my studio and about some birds of prey paintings I did many years ago which, I mentioned before in a blog in February 2021.

Back then I wrote:

"I met a lady somewhere whose son worked at The Butterfly Farm at Anston near Worksop. Her son looked after the resident group of birds of prey which they showed to visitors at the Centre.”

He offered to show me around and I was able to get amongst these amazing creatures, handle them and photograph them at close hand.  produced paintings in watercolour and pencil crayon and sold some in the gift shop at the Centre. I also did some prints and gift cards of the paintings which I sold or gave away. My sister has a collection of several of the pictures dating from 1996/7 as my brother –in-law loves owls.

I’ve remembered recently that the reason I was talking to the lady initially, was “mad cow disease.“

In the 1990s, mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE) raised significant public health concerns, particularly after it was linked to a rare and fatal human illness known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). BSE, a prion disease affecting cattle, caused the brain to deteriorate and became a major issue in countries like the UK, where infected cattle were found in the food supply. The risk was thought to arise from cattle being fed contaminated feed containing meat-and-bone meal from other animals, which could transmit the disease. The crisis led to widespread fear of consuming beef, government culling of infected animals, and changes in agricultural practices to prevent further outbreaks. The public health scare also resulted in stronger regulations for animal feed and greater scrutiny of food safety practices.

I still can’t remember why she was discussing this with me but I believe that her husband had died or was ill with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and thought he had contracted it through infected meat. Anyway during our conversation, she told me about her son and the Birds of Prey Centre at Anston near Worksop. She also worked in the shop  and invited me to spend some time there.

If I had the time, I would like to continue with my bird sketches and also paint some watercolours of birds of prey. However,  as I have no outlet for such paintings (apart from a book) I can’t really justify doing any more just yet. Check out  Andy Fairhurst Photography if you like birds of prey.

I decided to paint more of my bright seascapes this week to add to my collection.  I had 3 18”×20”  and 6 12”×10” deep-edged  canvases to go at. So, it was back to the oils. I have taken to wearing nitrile gloves when painting in oils. I get my hands very messy and using turps to clean them and then a wash with hot soap and water, was really drying my hands out. Wearing the gloves keeps my hands clean .

I enjoy doing these but painting in one go in wet into wet is tricky as you can end up with muddy colours..

I was sticking to the Northumberland theme and managed to do the 3 bigger ones plus a few of the smaller ones. I will add these to the 12 I did before.

I now need a new project. I will gradually build up a collection of Lakeland paintings for OCG and Beckstones.  There is no urgency for these but I need to order more canvases and then I can start work on these.

I also made 50 “oversized” cards. I ordered some large blank cards, which surprised me with their size.  I had enough material for them and when done they look great but I’ve no idea what to do with them.

I have ordered more canvases, so, next week I will get  on with some new Lakeland stuff.