Artist Biography | Animal Artist

ANDREW FORKNER

NATURAL ART

About the artist.

At the start of his career Andrew produced mostly illustration work, drawing birds and animals for journals, magazines and books (most notably as principal illustrator for ‘The Birds of Oxfordshire’ for which he produced the colour plate for the dust-jacket and 87 of the 147 ink drawings in the book).

A self-taught artist, he works in a variety of media, including graphite pencil, acrylics and pastel to complete his originals.

He has produced several commissions for the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), of which he has been a member for over thirty years.

He is a keen naturalist and has travelled in both this country and abroad in search of wildlife. His artwork has also travelled widely, with examples of his art in collections in the UK, Europe, Kenya, Canada, USA and Nepal.

Andrew is a signature member of The Artists for Conservation Foundation and also a member of The Wildlife Art Society International and the Marwell International Wildlife Art Society.

His work has been displayed at many British venues including Nature in Art at Gloucester (where he participates in their ‘Artist in Residence’ programme and runs drawing workshops), The Mall Galleries, Christies, Sotheby’s, The Artist and Illustrator’s Show at Olympia and Galleries at WWT Slimbridge, Arundel and The London Wetland Centre.

Andrew draws his inspiration from a multitude of sources, either through direct experience of a species or it’s surroundings, or from the indirect influence of his own sketches and photos.

He enjoys using a limited palette (i.e. a small range of colours) which can produce both subtle and dramatic effects and when using graphite pencil he takes this process to it’s ultimate extreme.

The absence of colour means that he must search for other aspects (e.g. pattern and shape) to give his work life and interest.

Working on either textured or smooth watercolour paper and using a full range of twenty different grades of pencil, the versatility of this medium provides Andrew with the means to achieve his desire to depict animals and birds in detail.