Lesley Anne Ivory.

Lesely Ann Ivory is am english fine artist and illustrator from England. During her career; her wood engravings have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, has created a set of limited edition prints of animals for the World Wildlife Fund and illustrated more than 40 books. She now works as a freelance designer and illustrator in Hertfordshire. 

Ivory is inspired by her cats, who feature almost exclusively in her artworks. She utilises her knowledge of the history of design into a wealth of sources of inspiration for artworks; including Indian and Persian design, mosaics, decoration and embellishments from the ancient world. 

This is my chosen image to study. This image is part of Ivory's series of artworks 'Star Cats: A Feline Zodiac' published as a book in 1998. This image; showing the feline representation of Capricorn was completed using watercolour and gouache. 

The main body of the artwork is completed in a traditional wildlife painting style- entirely literal, with the focus being on rendering the subjects in a style as true-to-life as possible. Around this fairly conventional painting however is thick and beautiful border of incredibly rich colours, detail and symbolism. 

The frame is broken up into a tapestry of smaller sections, each segment relating in some way to the Star sign 'Capricorn'. The top center pannel of the frame features a painted copy of an original medieval illustration (left) depicting Capricorn the goat; the constellation and symbol relating to this astrological sign. This art style continues throughout the piece, the silver interlocking designs between panels, the golden bird border either sides of the frame and the pendents and the jewelled pendents in each corner all belonging to the same celtic style. 

The colours in the border are rich and opulent. The overriding golden colour with elements of emerald green give the painting a lavished, luxurious aspect. The gold and green theme continues to the center of the painting; on the golden tabby cat with wide green eyes. with the similarly coloured border and against the pale, snowy backgrund the cat has a greater prominence and our eyes are instantly drawn to it first.