It was my privilege to interview Cath Hodsman, a skilled and widely acknowledged British wildlife artist, who lives in Gloucestershire, for Cotswold Life, this morning. Her work is in many specialist wildlife and natural history venues, including the most famous museum, The Natural History Museum in London.

Gaining an insight into an illustrator’s studio space is always fascinating and Cath’s work environment was certainly full of life in the real sense of the word. I was introduced to her 20 “Stickies” – her trusted growing family of female Indian Stick Insects – and drawers full of butterfly wings, honey bees and other specimens. Many of them have been given to her from Butterfly House at Berkeley Castle, which means Cath has primary research at her fingertips.
Armed with her glasses and strong microscopic glasses she looks, paints, looks, paints, until she has captured every hair, fleck of colour and stroke with her watercolours and acrylic inks. The results are stunning. They are accurate yet in a much more friendlier and delightful way than the more clinical diagram-like images one often finds in the old encyclopedias.
Once I have written the feature I will post it, but one thing that struck me in chatting with Cath, is the passion and enthusiasm she has for her subject. She just loves bugs and is evangelistic in her approach. It’s not just about capturing an insect – be it a bee, a beetle or a butterfly – that she is interested in; it is sharing that enjoyment for the little creatures with others, whether they are young or old; raising awareness of their importance and raising money to ensure they are protected for the future.

Cath is about to run a series of workshops to mark 2014, the Year of the Microscope. These include microscopy sketching and painting courses at The Centre for Science and Art, Stroud; Painswick Rococo Garden and Slimbridge.
As I chose to do an artist residency for my own work placement, it was very fitting that I had chance to talk in depth about Cath’s own experience at Nature in Art and other venues. She is about to start another residency at the WWT at Slimbridge. So I asked her what value such residencies have and what she expects to gain from them. This was her reply: