Ian Davie - feather art

Ian Davie - feather art NEWS

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With an especially unusual canvas, Ian Davie crafts his unique wildlife paintings onto swan feathers. Meticulously painted onto the snow white swan feathers, these artworks really are fit for a Queen.

Ian Davie is said to have always had a fascination with the natural world from a young age, working in some of Britain's most scenic areas as a gamekeeper for many years. However, it wasn't until his 40th birthday that he picked up a paintbrush for the first time.

'I had a rather chequered work history before my art took off that included marketing and design, taxidermy, farming and working as a gamekeeper in and around Snowdonia.

'I eventually started with a traditional canvas, five years ago and discovered to my surprise that I was quite adept at painting.

'My experience outdoors in Wales and in a strange way with the taxidermy have all helped to inform my animal and landscape art,' Davie told the Daily Mail.

Inspired by the feather art of the Maori people in New Zealand on his travels, Davie returned to his Welsh home in the heart of Snowdonia to change his canvas for something more natural and unique.

'A light bulb went on in my mind when I made the connection and realised that in my time in Wales I had observed hundreds of swan feathers on the ground in Wales, which were literally all blank canvasses.'

The process is a tough one to prepare the feathers for painting. After cleaning the quills and straightening out the feathers individually with tweezers, Davie then begins the painting process.

Planning ahead with such little space to work with, Davie has to sketch what he wants to achieve prior to painting.

'I only have a canvas that is around one foot long and around three inches wide so I have to know exactly the course my painting will take.'

All the feathers are collected from a bird reserve by wardens, where in return Davie makes a generous donation towards the upkeep of the birds.

The works are painted using an acrylic mix over primer with a specialised 000-sized brush for the finer details.

When Davie asked an expert from the Natural History Museum in London how long the art would last, he was told feathers had been found totally intact inside the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs, left behind some 3000 years ago.

Since 2005, Davie has had his work exhibited in numerous galleries across the country and has even been asked to become the artist in residence at the Nature and Art Museum in Gloucestershire.

Davie's work sells for between £500 and £700 a feather, with his larger canvases of five feathers selling for up to £1,800.

More information about Davie's work can be found on Feather Art by Ian Davie.