Wildflower Paintings Helping to Preserve the British Countryside
Plantlife and Yvonne Coomber *Competition*
Competition will run 1st-30th November 2017
I am delighted to be partnering with Plantlife in offering one lucky winner the chance to win a limited edition print worth £200! You can take a peek at the Ts & Cs here
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Good Luck!
Wildflower Paintings Inspired by Nature
When I was a child I think I dreamt of being an artist, it always felt like an occupation where you could completely be yourself. If I wasn’t an artist now; I have such profound love of flowers, I think I would love to be a florist or something deeply connected with nature. My wildflower paintings burst with life, as if the flowers are tumbling from the canvas into the room. Inspired by wild hedgerows bursting with kaleidoscopic colour, my wildflower paintings sparkle with joy and happiness. My artwork is a place of beauty and wildness, a place to wander and dream, to lose yourself in the sky, to feel the sun warm on your face and the grass under your feet. It is a place to feel at peace, to regain that connection between land and soul. The magic of wildflowers, tumbling hedgerows and the cacophony of colour found in the meadows provide endless inspiration to me and are the main inspiration behind my wildflower paintings and glittering artwork.
National Meadows Day
I was recently introduced to Plantlife, a British conservation charity patroned by HRH The Prince of Wales, which works to save threatened wildflowers, plants and fungi. The charity owns nearly 4,500 acres of nature reserve across England, Scotland and Wales where you can find over 80% of the UK’s wildflower species. Plantlife is an organisation for which I have a deep-rooted passion, not least because they love wildflowers as much as I do (!), but because they started up ‘National Meadow Day’ – as part of the ‘Save Our Magnificent Meadows’ project – to raise awareness of these most beautiful natural habitats. National Meadows Day is a growing event which celebrates wildflower grasslands and provides an opportunity to showcase the amazing wildflowers and species in the communities all across the UK. This annual event takes place on the first weekend of July (this year it fell on 1st July). The vision is for people up and down the UK to celebrate National Meadow Day in their own city, village, parish, wildlife reserve, allotment or farm. With guided walks, butterfly counts, scarecrow making, crafts, music and learning how to build your own haystack, National Meadows Day has different events happening all over the countryside (and in cities too) throughout the whole of July and you can find out what’s happening in your local area here.
The Importance of Protecting our Meadowlands
Some of us perhaps don’t realise the vast diversity and importance of flowers, insects and wildlife found in the meadows, so to grow the awareness of our most special meadowlands is crucial in helping to teach the public that this important habitat is fast disappearing. Meadows and other species-rich grasslands are an intrinsic part of the UK’s natural and cultural heritage – rich in landscape character, farming, folklore and history, they are as much a part of our heritage as the works of Shakespeare. The UK’s remaining species-rich grasslands now cover a minute fraction of the area they once covered, even relatively recently in the early 20th Century. There were once natural wildflower meadows in every parish – today only 2% of the meadows that existed in the 1930s remain. Nearly 7.5 million acres of wildflower meadow have been lost so far and they are still being destroyed. Of those that do survive, around 75% occur in small fragments and remain vulnerable to destruction. The ‘Save Our Magnificent Meadows’ project is helping to address the current absence of public awareness of the importance and plight of meadows and species-rich grasslands. Find out more about Plantlife’s work at www.plantlife.org.uk.
I am hoping to help raise awareness of Plantlife to help save our British meadows and keep the colour of the countryside alive. I hope that you will join me by sharing photos and stories of what you did to celebrate National Meadows Day on Facebook and Instagram.