I have recently arrived in New Ferry where I am undertaking an artist in residency at the New Ferry Butterfly Park. It is organised by Carol Ramsey who is passionate about the park and made a wonderful job of organising the residency. This Blog will follow the development of my work over the next month with regular updates and photos and tips on painting on stone.
Several days on and I have made a start on adding in the butterflies and insects which the children will learn to identify and spot and count. This is to give them the knowledge to help them identify things flying in the field and also develop the observational skills. By starting to spot things that are static it will help the see the butterflies flitting around the park. The stones also guide the visitors as to what they can find in the different habitats.
A couple of days on and two of the stones have the background plants painted loosely in. Since the insects are the key point of the illustrations the plants do not need detail. Time on this project is limited so it’s a question of working out how to deliver without doing poor quality work so this compromise will actually enhance the purpose of the stones which is for children to learn to identify the insects and butterflies at the Butterfly Park and develop their observational skills looking for and counting the number of each species they can spot on the stones.
more photographs from todays workshop
Look out for the series of free workshops being run as part of the Comma Project for the New Ferry Butterfly Park. These are being run by the six artists in residence up until mid September. To-day I ran a workshop for the local community to paint on stones with the special tennis court line paint, an acrylic paint supplied by Promain Paints. The paint is slip-proof, scuff proof and will last about 15 years outdoors. It is top quality acrylic paint to work with. You can easily put pale colours on top of dark colours. It can be put on thickly or thinly and works for details or rough textured effects so is very flexible. You can paint directly onto stone or put a base layer of white on first depending on the effect you want to achieve.
