I have worked with The Blossom Charity for four years now, so when I heard that we would be organising a "sheep trail" I jumped at the chance to be one of the artists.
You may have heard of the Norwich GoGoHares? Or the London Tusk Rhino trail? Well, if not, they are essentially where sculptures, usually of animals, are decorated by local artists and placed around an area for the public to find. Once the trail is over the sculptures, in our case, sheep, are auctioned off and the money raised is donated to charity.
Of course I put my name forward for being an artist - I wasn't going to miss out!
I was paired with the Central England Co-operative, and speaking to Jennifer we bounced around some ideas to as how to best decorate the sheep and also include the Co-operatives values. I liked the idea that pretty much everyone has a local co-op and as a business, they are really community-based.
With this in mind I played around with some sketches and came up with a bee-based sheep. I worked with patterns of flowers and bees and honey and bee hives and a loose design was born.
Painting the sheep itself has it's challenges too - I haven't worked with acrylic paint for a while and the surface of the sheep was textured and wavy - A far cry from my usual coloured pencil on flat paper.
I couldn't resist adding a top hat to Mr.Bear, a little nod to my Animals in Hats series. And over the sheep I have painted bees of all varieties.
The sheep are now out in the world, or at least in the town of Eye you can get a map of the trail from many of the local businesses in the town. All of the money raised will be donated to The Blossom Charity. They work with local women to build their confidence, build their skills and be the best that they can be. You can find out more about the charity and their cause here
I hope you like Bumble. Let me know what you think.
KTx
