I've been celebrating the incredible success of otters in Yorkshire at the gallery this week.
The theme of my exhibition has been geared around telling their incredible survival story and I've dedicated a new series of otter paintings, run a series of guided walks to find otters and held an evening of talks by otter experts in tribute to it.
There was a time when to see an otter was a rare treat and in fact these shy animals faced extinction in the 1960s.
Now, thanks to a concerted effort by conservationists, they can be seen on every waterway in the UK.
Today The York Press published a feature on my exhibition about their amazing journey from the brink of extinction.
As is so often the way with wildlife, when it came to trying to find an otter to paint for the exhibiton, I was stumped. Although these creatures are now thriving in Yorkshire, my attempts to get any photographs to paint from were constantly thwarted and so, frustrated, I ended up going all the way to Jura in Scotland in search of inspiration.
Read about how I finally found an otter for this painting in my monthly Yorkshire Post column here.
There is a guided walk tomorrow led by Jon Traill from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to look for otters along the River Hull near Driffield. If you are interested in booking a place on it contact us here at the gallery or follow this link to my website.
