|
READ MORE ARTICLES....
How to Create a Wildlife
Friendly Garden - BBC Easy Gardening
Growing the 10
Best Plants for Wildlife in your Garden - BBC Gardens Illustrated
A Flavour
of April in your Wildlife Friendly Garden - Country and Border Life
The Rural Craft
of Hedgelaying in Dorset - The Countryman
Managing your
Garden in October - Country and Border Life
The Historic
Welsh Gardens of Plas Tan y Bwlch - The Countryman
Looking after
the Bees in your Garden - Daily Express
Making Wildlife
Ponds the Easy Way - Daily Express
Wings over
Mull - a Centre for Birds of Prey - The Countryman
A New Garden for
Wildlife with Butterflies in Mind - Butterfly Conservation
The
Wildlife Art of Ian and Richard Lewington - Limited
Edition Magazine
'I went to
Noke and Nobody Spoke' - Fascinating Otmoor - Limited Edition
Magazine
Gardening on the
Wild Side of Town - New Consumer Magazine
Peter
Parks and the Great Rainforest Project - Limited Edition Magazine
The Countryside in January - Limited Edition
Magazine
The Countryside in May - Limited Edition
Magazine
Return to Article Selection
Contact Jenny to find out more about her freelance writing |
THE WILDLIFE
ART OF IAN AND RICHARD LEWINGTON
Most people
who have a passion for natural history have had memorable close
encounters with wildlife at some time that ignited that passion.
For me there were two such moments in my childhood. The first was
at the age of about six, when I watched baby blue tits emerging from
a nest hole in an old horse chestnut tree, and felt truly astonished
that these tiny balls of coloured fluff were actually alive. The
second encounter was with a privet hawk-moth caterpillar, which
became a ‘pet’ for a while as it fed on leaves gathered from hedges
around my East Oxford home. It pupated and hatched into a stunning
moth, and a second obsession was born. It is a lucky person
indeed who can convert that passion into a means of making a living
but wildlife artists Ian and Richard Lewington, who come from South
Oxfordshire, are two such remarkable people, and both are considered
to be amongst the very best illustrative artists in their particular
fields of birds and insects.
As youngsters,
Richard and Ian spent a great deal of their spare time with their
father Jack, walking the Berkshire Downs and the local countryside,
looking at the birds, butterflies and other wildlife that their
father had a great passion for. Richard, the elder brother by
thirteen years, also remembers his interest in his grandfather’s
pinned collection of butterflies and moths. ‘Whenever we visited,
it was the first thing I ran to’ he says. For Richard the die was
cast at a very early age, and when he began to show promise as an
artist he was encouraged, not just by his family but also by the art
teacher at his school, to apply to Art College. He duly attended
the Berkshire College of Art to study graphic design but feels his
natural history painting stagnated there and time was wasted.
Looking at his lovely paintings of his pretty daughter I would
disagree, but he knew the path he wanted to take. It was not long
before he received his first commission – to paint all the insects
for the well known Reader’s Digest Book of the Countryside.
Work continued to
pile up as he quickly became recognised as just about the best
invertebrate illustrator around. His own Collins Guides on the
identification of butterflies have added a new dimension to his work, as
he has written the text as well as produced the artwork. Richard’s
stunning work in the Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland
with local authors Paul Waring and Martin Townsend, has become the
standard work for this group of insects. His skill is shown at its very
best in this volume, where his attention to detail and ability to paint
the slightest variation in colour and form bring out the beauty in even
the brownest moth.
When younger brother
Ian’s passion began, Richard was already illustrating professionally. Ian
was greatly influenced by Richard’s choice of career but his interest was
firmly rooted in the birdlife he saw on those natural history walks. He
was, and still is, fascinated by the detail of plumage variation and his
skills have brought about his role as identification consultant to Birding
World, a highly respected birding journal.
Ian took his brother’s advice and stayed away from Art College,
concentrating on perfecting his painting skills (as well as playing
football and badminton at County level and performing in a rock band!) In
1985 he won the British Birds Bird Illustrator of the Year award and
Richard Richardson awards – both enormous achievements for a young
artist. Immediately the work poured in, and Ian began illustrating many
field guides as well as producing plates for identification articles and
papers describing species new to science.
Ian’s whole life
revolves around the birds he loves. Trips all over the world as well as
exploring his local patch (he is County Bird Recorder for Oxfordshire)
help to perfect his identification skills and his ability to paint the
subtleties and nuances of plumage into his work. ‘Today’s birders are
incredibly demanding’ he tells me. ‘They expect every aspect of a
painting to be totally accurate, and my objective is to perfect what I
do. A good illustration should have nothing of the artist in it, but
simply be an accurate representation of the subject. That is what I am
always striving for’. This perfection Ian certainly achieves but
with an artistic quality that now ranks him amongst the best, not just in
the UK but in the world.
Ian's most recent
work includes contributions to a massive work, Lynx Birds of the World,
where he has illustrated groups including the gulls, woodcreepers, swifts,
cockatoos and barbets plus a book on the Rare Birds of North America.
Ahead of him is several years work on a field guide to all the birds of
North America.
Sometimes it seems
that there is almost too much talent in one family. What ever combination
of nature and nurture came together in Ian and Richard Lewington, it
happened in some quantity. Their ability to see, and then put onto paper,
the minute details in the plumage of two closely related birds, or the
delicate colour variation on the scales of the wings of several moths, is
their greatest skill. But that ability is then combined with an
imaginative flair that makes their paintings real works of art, not just
more illustrations for a book on birds or insects.
As I prepare to
leave Richard’s tidy studio, the walls lined with every natural history
book I have ever wanted, he tempts me with an idea. He knows my passion
for wildlife gardening. ‘I would love to collaborate with Ian on a really
good guide to garden wildlife’ he says. ‘Between us we could cover the
illustrations of all the important groups – birds, butterflies and moths,
dragonflies, amphibians, small mammals.’ Now there’s something to look
forward to.
©
Copyright Jenny Steel 2017 |
