Soysambu Conservancy

It’s drawing sale time again, but this year with something special added…in 2004 I went on the art workshop safari of a lifetime with internationally-known wildlife artist Simon Combes. For 16 glorious days he regaled us with stories (with a few naughty limericks thrown in), shared his knowledge of the wildlife of Africa and made sure we got to see as many species as possible. Tragically, Simon was killed by a cape buffalo ten years ago this month. To honor him, some of the drawings I’ve created for the sale have been done from photo reference I took during the safari. The sale will start with them. It will be an auction and 20% of the sales price will be donated to the Soysambu Conservancy (formerly the Delamere Estate), which is where Simon grew up and one of the places we stayed in 2004. Very important conservation work is being carried out there. I photographed the young Rothschild’s giraffe, an endangered species, at Soysambu. It’s graphite on paper.

Simon Combes posing by one of the Land Rovers, which had been attacked by a hippo that had come into our camp (a story for another day…)

After the Africa drawings, there will be a variety of other subjects, including some from Mongolia. 20% of the proceeds from those pieces will be donated to the Department of Conservation Biology at the Denver Zoo to support scientific research in Mongolia. The sale will take place on my public Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SusanFoxArt. You do not have to have a Facebook account to bid or buy. Purchase and payment instructions will be included with each post. I hope that you’ll come check it out!

Thank you and happy holidays!
Susan Fox

I’ve been invited to participate in a very special event on September 17, The Big Cat Quick Draw, which will be held at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, California from 2-5pm. I’ll be one of nine artists painting and drawing from a live cheetah, Tango, from Sierra Big Cat Haven. We’ll have between 60 and 90 minutes to create our piece of original art.

Once we’re done, our work will be auctioned off to raise money for Project Survival’s Cheetah Education Center at the Soysambu Conservancy in Kenya.

If you’re in the area, you’re invited! More information here.

To get ready for this event, I needed to brush up on cheetahs and decide what media I think I will want to use. So I got out my pencils, watercolors and some different art papers yesterday and did some quick studies. My reference was photos I took of cheetahs in the Masai Mara, Kenya, in October 2004, when I was one of ten artists who went on a 16 day art workshop/safari with internationally known wildlife life artist, the late Simon Combes, the father of Guy Combes, who is one of the organizers of the quick draw.