A Flamingo Refresh

Flamingos have been part of the Also the Bison since way back in 2017. Did you know I designed them before I even designed the Lepidoptera Butterfly design? 

Flamingos can be spotted here in my first range of Skinny Minnies! 

Back then I was still trying to find my voice and work out what Also the Bison was all about. You can see that there are a lot more botanical prints than animals! I was heavily influenced by William Morris' work, but wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to take it. 

The early pastel flamingos grew out of a love for the birds, but a frustration that a lot of the flamingos I saw on the high street were a neon pink shade that was nothing like real flamingos I had seen, combined with a childhood love of Alice in Wonderland and the idea of flamingos as croquet sticks. 

Pastel pink flamingos at Birdworld in Surrey. 

Also the Bison has come a long way since then, and although the flamingos have stuck with me, I have been less and less happy with them. They seemed a long way from my Natural History Illustration style, flat and cartoonish rather than impressionistic and grounded in research on different species. The time had clearly come to take another crack at flamingos. 

I kept my intention of keeping the flamingos in their accurate, mostly pastel shades but turned up the colour of the background to a deep, aqua shade of turquoise. I have managed to cram every single species of flamingo into this print! I had no idea there were so many, did you? 

Pictured: Flamboyance of Flamingos Art Print

What do you think of the Flamingo Refresh? It's always interesting to me to go back and paint old designs because I can see how much my painting abilities have improved. I am able to cram so much more detail into each illustration now, and I have a greater variety of colours I can use. It's very tempting to go back and refresh some other designs now that this has been so successful! Are there any other prints I should go back and refresh?