I am delighted to say that in Dec 2024 I became the recipient of the Society of Wildlife Artists https://swla.co.uk/ Natural Eye Bursary for 2025. I put my success down to the ‘querk’ value of my chosen subject..
For the next nine months I will be focusing my bursary effort on studying, knowing, and visualising my chosen muse. ‘Seamat’, or ‘Seamoss’. Its wildlife yes, but only the very occasional marine biologist would know this if they happened to walk past a colony washed up on the shore. Membranipora membranacea and Electra pilosa are a colonial bryozoan animal common all over the UK coast. Its colonies grow mainly on macro algae (seaweed). Individuals are tiny, approx 0.5mm. Bryozoans are a phyllum that dont occur terrestrially, so they dont look anything like a landlubber. They dont have arms, legs, eyes, nose etc; and since many of us dont get the opportunity to explore the ocean depths and see the variety of life present there, our concept of what an ‘animal’ is has a skewed perspective. Its going to be my absolute pleasure to shine a small spotlight on this humble animal and I look forward to sharing my journey in the blog