Snow arrives in Durham City - along with some uneckspected visitors!

Durham Giraffes on Ice - Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre

It was with great excitement that the residents of Durham woke up to find their city covered in the fluffy white of snow. What they did not realize, however, was that during the night there had been a 'Nextra Day'! This is a day that does not feature in our human planetary calendar, but links a distant planet named 'Giraffe World' in Camelopardalis Constellation with our Earth. The long-necked Camelopardalian creatures can visit our world unseen and enjoy some of our top tourist destinations all to themselves.

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Durham Artists Ingrid Sylvestre North East artist North East art for sale Ingrid Sylvestre

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Travelling through the Secret Intergalactic Cacti - Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre

Travelling through the Secret Intergalactic Cacti via boat and bus, the giraffes look forward to their adventures in Durham while we humans sleep.

Durham Goes Giraffe at Xmas  - Durham Artists Ingrid Sylvestre

After the nexcitement of skating on the River while admiring views of  beautiful Durham Cathedral, our long-necked visitors enjoy some seasonal shopping in the cobbled streets of the city before returning to their world, laden with nextra-terrestrial gifts!

If you would like a nextra-special Durham gift or Durham Christmas card, these images can be printed onto a wide selection of quality items, including mugs, bags, teatowels and placemats available from:

The Useful Art Company


Ingrid Sylvestre Artist Durham North East England UK Fine Artist Illustrator Designer Writer Composer Songwriter Caricaturist Speaker. On-the-spot caricatures for weddings corporate events parties fun days, cartoons for all occasions, wedding caricaturist Durham Newcastle Darlington Teesside Northumberland Sunderland North East England UK.

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North East Artists - Exhibition by Ingrid Sylvestre 'Enchanted with Existence' - New Storylines for Living with Environmental Change - Durham University Botanic Garden - 14th June to 31st August 2012

Since September 2011 I have been working as the Associate Artist for a project sponsored by Durham University's Institute of Advanced Studies, 'New Storylines for Living with Environmental Change'. This work is now on display at the Botanic Garden until 31st August.

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North East artist Ingrid Sylvestre Durham artists UK

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The project has been tremendously inspiring and challenging for me, as an artist, and also as a citizen with concern for our planet. It has highlighted the urgency of facing the issues of climate change and the need for a change of lifestyle, and also the potential risks in geo-engineering the climate.

The images below are from the artworks I created during the project, and some of the pages in the booklet that goes with the exhibition. If you click on them they enlarge so that they can be read.

Introduction to New Storylines for Living with Environmental Change exhibition - Ingrid Sylvestre - Art and Science

Foreword to the Exhibition - Professor Sarah Banks and Professor Phil Macnaghten Durham University - New Storylines for Living with Environmental Change - Ingrid Sylvestre - Art and Science

'Gifts' - Watercolour

'Universes' - Acrylic on canvas

'Myths'

'Solar Energy' - Watercolour

'Who Controls the Seasons?' - Watercolour

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North East artists art for sale by North East artist Ingrid Sylvestre Paintings for sale and sommission North East UK County Durham Newcastle upon Tyne Northumberland Cleveland North Yorkshire

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'Solar Storms' - Acrylic on canvas

'The Two Faces of Science'

Durham artist Ingrist Sylvestre, Durham North East England UK. Associate Artist with Durham University Institute of Advanced Studies project 'New Storylines for living with Environmental Change'. Art and Science, Science and Art.

Environmental art, Fine Art paintings, English Landscape painter, English Romantic Landscapes paintings, illustrations, speaking engagements, creative workshops, commissioned Fine Art paintings for sale. Durham.

Nexhibition: 'The Neckmanns of Giraffe World' at University of Durham Botanic Garden

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The Botanic Garden in Durham is currently hosting a 'nexhibition' of my Giraffe World characters, the Neckmann family,  (10th May to 8th June).

(To enlarge and read the information on the image below, please click on it and then right click 'view image' and click again!)

 

 

The story telling and activity session in the glass houses on 12th June was great fun, and a good time was had by all!

The exhibition is in the Visitors' Centre Cafe, where you can relax with refreshments and tasty food. (I highly recommend the smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches!!)

Below are some of the illustrations exhibited.

The Neckmann Family party outside Necky Knoll House - Ingrid Sylvestre Giraffe Artist, creator of Raph's Ramblings

The family party outside Necky Knoll House

Raph G. Neckmann  looks at planet Earth through his telescope from Giraffe World in Camelopardalis Constellation.

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Necky Becky and her brother Littl' Nicky arrive at the Secret Portal behind the Intergalactic Cacti on planet Earth!

Between the worlds - the Giraffe World bus and rowing boat.

The Forest Road

Narcissus sylvestris ssp. giraffodil - Ingrid Sylvestre Durham North East Artist

Narcissus sylvestris ssp giraffodil

Neckelchester Village

Underwater Adventure

Cactus Mural Anniversary!

Three years ago I had the opportunity to work on a wonderfully interesting project in one of my favourite places - the University of Durham Botanic Garden! The project was to paint a mural to go in the Cactus House.



Situated next to the Tropical House in the complex, the Cactus House backs onto another glasshouse. The Garden staff wanted a mural which could be installed to screen the room behind, and also to serve as an educational tool for visitors.


I was given a list of species to feature on the mural, which were to complement the collection of living cacti and succulents in the glasshouse. I produced a sketch/plan showing where the cacti were to be situated on the mural, with the landscape behind drawing the eye compositionally into the scene.



Below you can see the lovely smooth clean boards - primed with several coats of white gesso. I do love to start a new painting, and this one was in a particularly interesting environment!


The staff had made a kind of 'easel' for the boards to rest on in one of the glasshouses behind the cactus house.


To my right was an amazing feature - a raised pond housing the Victoria amazonica!


I worked during the afternoons, so that visitors to the garden could come and see what I was doing and talk with me. Later, when the gardens were closed, I was given the keys to the glasshouses so I could work uninterruptedly during the night. It was wonderful to watch the sky grow dark and the stars appear through the ceiling of the glasshouse!



I built the mural up in stages, from the basic drawing in pale colours, to laying in the blue sky, and then gradually working up the foreground.

More form and detail was gradually added.



To my right, the shapes of the lilypads in the raised pond were a constant source of fascination!

During the night, new lilies opened from buds. I would be painting away, then turn round, and a beautiful lily had opened!




Behind the pond were all kinds of cacti in pots - can you see the one with the little face that someone had made in it?

I had a comfortable bench to sit on to paint the details lower in the mural.


And little creatures to keep me company!






The mural was nearly complete ...


Details on the left ...


Details on the right ...


The Head Gardener asked me to paint a secret giraffe somewhere on the mural for visiting school children to find ... can you see the neck?



Why? ... Places can become secret portals to other worlds when mysterious intergalactic light shines on them!



After many days the mural was complete!


It was installed into position in the Cactus House. I love to go and see it and relive the wonderful time I had painting in such a special place. If you click on the picture below, you can view the website of the Botanic Garden.
Ingrid Sylvestre Mural Painter Mural Artist Durham North East England UK Newcastle Sunderland Teesside Darlington Northumberland Murals

February Moon

I've always loved February. The trees, with their wondrous forms still bare of foliage, seem to lift their branches in anticipation of the surging life of Spring.

The above painting, sold a few years ago, was composed looking up from the woodland in the University of Durham Botanic Garden. The tree-roots ripple along the grassy bank and the light snowfall is similar to ours earlier this week.

I painted it on tinted Ingres paper, using ink, watercolour and white gouache, a technique I find particularly expressive for sylvan scenery.


Above is another painting on Ingres paper, painted at the same time as the previous image. The group of conifers, also in the Botanic Garden, seem to be drawing together to gaze at the February moon and waiting ...


I love this group of trees so much that I decided to paint the image again, this time on a larger scale using acrylic on canvas. This painting is not quite finished - I often like to 'rest' a piece of artwork, to contemplate it for a while before completion.

Ingrid Sylvestre - Durham Artist

Evening Light of Gold

I love the light during the Winter, especially in the evenings when the sun is low and casts exciting shadows. Here the sunlight turns the damp surface of the road to magical liquid gold!