Celebrating the Snow - and Houghall, Durham!

Houghall - Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre

Our lovely landscape here in the North East UK is currently clothed with snow - how it transforms everything!

I realized that I hardly ever paint snow - and not having the time at present to go out there with easel and brushes, I dug out these two paintings I did while living at Houghall College of Horticulture & Agriculture in Durham City.

They are both quite small and painted in watercolour, white gouache and black ink on tinted Ingres paper.

While lecturing in Art & Design at Houghall I rented a wonderful house in the extensive and magnificent grounds. The first painting is of the view from the patio, looking beyond my beloved plants in tubs to the garden. The hedge always fascinated me, such a fantastic shape!

Houghall - Durham Artists Ingrid Sylvestre

The second painting is the view from one of the upstairs rooms, looking across the house garden to further lands belonging to the college. In the distance are the mysterious woods.

Whether in winter, spring, summer or autumn, this landscape and environment is a place of great beauty and wonder.

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Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre Durham Art for sale North East Artist

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Ingrid Sylvestre - Durham Art

Snow arrives in Durham City - along with some uneckspected visitors!

Durham Giraffes on Ice - Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre

It was with great excitement that the residents of Durham woke up to find their city covered in the fluffy white of snow. What they did not realize, however, was that during the night there had been a 'Nextra Day'! This is a day that does not feature in our human planetary calendar, but links a distant planet named 'Giraffe World' in Camelopardalis Constellation with our Earth. The long-necked Camelopardalian creatures can visit our world unseen and enjoy some of our top tourist destinations all to themselves.

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Durham Artists Ingrid Sylvestre North East artist North East art for sale Ingrid Sylvestre

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Travelling through the Secret Intergalactic Cacti - Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre

Travelling through the Secret Intergalactic Cacti via boat and bus, the giraffes look forward to their adventures in Durham while we humans sleep.

Durham Goes Giraffe at Xmas  - Durham Artists Ingrid Sylvestre

After the nexcitement of skating on the River while admiring views of  beautiful Durham Cathedral, our long-necked visitors enjoy some seasonal shopping in the cobbled streets of the city before returning to their world, laden with nextra-terrestrial gifts!

If you would like a nextra-special Durham gift or Durham Christmas card, these images can be printed onto a wide selection of quality items, including mugs, bags, teatowels and placemats available from:

The Useful Art Company


Ingrid Sylvestre Artist Durham North East England UK Fine Artist Illustrator Designer Writer Composer Songwriter Caricaturist Speaker. On-the-spot caricatures for weddings corporate events parties fun days, cartoons for all occasions, wedding caricaturist Durham Newcastle Darlington Teesside Northumberland Sunderland North East England UK.

Cactus Mural Anniversary!

Three years ago I had the opportunity to work on a wonderfully interesting project in one of my favourite places - the University of Durham Botanic Garden! The project was to paint a mural to go in the Cactus House.



Situated next to the Tropical House in the complex, the Cactus House backs onto another glasshouse. The Garden staff wanted a mural which could be installed to screen the room behind, and also to serve as an educational tool for visitors.


I was given a list of species to feature on the mural, which were to complement the collection of living cacti and succulents in the glasshouse. I produced a sketch/plan showing where the cacti were to be situated on the mural, with the landscape behind drawing the eye compositionally into the scene.



Below you can see the lovely smooth clean boards - primed with several coats of white gesso. I do love to start a new painting, and this one was in a particularly interesting environment!


The staff had made a kind of 'easel' for the boards to rest on in one of the glasshouses behind the cactus house.


To my right was an amazing feature - a raised pond housing the Victoria amazonica!


I worked during the afternoons, so that visitors to the garden could come and see what I was doing and talk with me. Later, when the gardens were closed, I was given the keys to the glasshouses so I could work uninterruptedly during the night. It was wonderful to watch the sky grow dark and the stars appear through the ceiling of the glasshouse!



I built the mural up in stages, from the basic drawing in pale colours, to laying in the blue sky, and then gradually working up the foreground.

More form and detail was gradually added.



To my right, the shapes of the lilypads in the raised pond were a constant source of fascination!

During the night, new lilies opened from buds. I would be painting away, then turn round, and a beautiful lily had opened!




Behind the pond were all kinds of cacti in pots - can you see the one with the little face that someone had made in it?

I had a comfortable bench to sit on to paint the details lower in the mural.


And little creatures to keep me company!






The mural was nearly complete ...


Details on the left ...


Details on the right ...


The Head Gardener asked me to paint a secret giraffe somewhere on the mural for visiting school children to find ... can you see the neck?



Why? ... Places can become secret portals to other worlds when mysterious intergalactic light shines on them!



After many days the mural was complete!


It was installed into position in the Cactus House. I love to go and see it and relive the wonderful time I had painting in such a special place. If you click on the picture below, you can view the website of the Botanic Garden.
Ingrid Sylvestre Mural Painter Mural Artist Durham North East England UK Newcastle Sunderland Teesside Darlington Northumberland Murals

February Moon

I've always loved February. The trees, with their wondrous forms still bare of foliage, seem to lift their branches in anticipation of the surging life of Spring.

The above painting, sold a few years ago, was composed looking up from the woodland in the University of Durham Botanic Garden. The tree-roots ripple along the grassy bank and the light snowfall is similar to ours earlier this week.

I painted it on tinted Ingres paper, using ink, watercolour and white gouache, a technique I find particularly expressive for sylvan scenery.


Above is another painting on Ingres paper, painted at the same time as the previous image. The group of conifers, also in the Botanic Garden, seem to be drawing together to gaze at the February moon and waiting ...


I love this group of trees so much that I decided to paint the image again, this time on a larger scale using acrylic on canvas. This painting is not quite finished - I often like to 'rest' a piece of artwork, to contemplate it for a while before completion.

Ingrid Sylvestre - Durham Artist

Neckshund Nexploits at the Botanic Garden!

Wednesday 1st of June was another nextra special day at the University of Durham Botanic Garden. Once again, Necky Becky travelled all the way from Giraffe World to take part in a story-telling session with Ingrid. This time she brought her beloved neckshund dog Hals with her, and her toddler brother Littl' Nicky too!

They were all very nexcited to arrive at the secret portal behind the Intergalactic Cacti.




During the storytelling Hals got very hungry and decided to pop back home to get some of his favourite biscuits.

He went to the Intergalactic Cacti, but though he tried and tried, he couldn't get the secret portal to Giraffe World to appear!


"Oh dear!" he said to himself. "I'm so very hungry. I wonder if there are any nice biscuits in the Botanic Garden?"

Someone had left the door to the glasshouses a teeny bit open, so he squeezed through into the fresh air.



There were lots of beautiful flowers in the Garden, and Hals sniffed them. "How lovely!" he said. "But not like biscuits ..."




Further along the path he found a big display board. There was plenty of information about trees on it, but no directions to biscuits.




He trotted past the gunnera and stopped for a moment. They looked so huge and the stems were
very prickly-looking, so he decided not to look for biscuits there!

By now he was feeling tired and very hungry indeed. He wondered if Necky Becky had noticed that he was missing. Maybe she would come and look for him. That would be so comforting.




Suddenly Hals came face to face with a very strange looking creature. In the shadows under the trees he couldn't tell if it was a fallen log or a huge monster!
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He turned and ran, looking over his shoulder to see if it was following him. Faster and faster, his little legs moving so quickly you could hardly see them, until he arrived at a big blue door - the Visitors Centre!




As he stood outside panting, so very tired and thirsty from his mad dash through the garden, one of the ladies in the cafe saw him. She brought him a big bowl of water to drink.



By this time the story-telling had finished, and how pleased Hals was to see Necky Becky and Littl' Nicky running towards him! Guess what Necky Becky had in her pocket? Some of his favourite biscuits!

They all sat by the Intergalactic Cacti and waited for their dad, Raph, to collect them.



Back through the secret portal they go in their family bus, until neckst time!

Necky Becky's dad has his own blog, Raph's Ramblings, where he writes about his thoughts and the family adventures.

Durham Supermoon

When we were out in Durham City on Saturday night, the supermoon shone down on Elvet Bridge as the restaurants emptied.


Brighter than the lights along the River Banks, surpassing the street-lamps ...


Serene and still as the taxis sped by the Old Shire Hall ...



Illuminating Spring buds on filigree branches ...


Beautiful beyond the clouds.

Ingrid Sylvestre