Artist's StatementTina Bone paints anything to do with nature, in realistic fashion, hoping that her pictures enlighten viewers to the beauty of nature itself and help to open up their thoughts to appreciate and conserve the natural world. She also specialises in botanical illustration and between 2021 and 2026 she is doing a project for exhibition with the RHS as well as a group project with the Iceni Botanical Artists to paint a year (flora and fauna) at Fullers Mill Garden (West Stow). Another speciality is illuminated lettering with gold leaf.

The love of all things nature came into its own when Tina teamed up with world-renowned Sylvia M. Haslam (Cambridge University Plant Sciences) in 2010, to research, co-author, illustrate, and produce a series of booklets to do with rivers. As well as helping to compose text, Tina is charged with editing manuscripts, researching for illustrations, and deciding what to draw for each book. She also typesets each little book and publishes on the Ingram Spark platform. Having been a self-employed typesetter, prior to becoming a professional Artist in 2005, Tina was also copy-editor for the CUP publication Modern Asian Studies Journal for ten years, which experience has served her well for her present, on-going main-art project.

In September 2019, the final text, drawings and paintings for the first little book were completed and, by December 2020, five more were published (total 350 illustrations). All the books are under the umbrella heading of "River Friend", a name adopted by Sylvia Haslam many years ago (the logo for which was designed by Tina) and included in many of her books published by CUP and other printing houses. Several more River Friend titles are in preparation (between exhibition and commissions work), and seven have been published as at 1 December 2022. Each book is a stand-alone publication on a particular riverine topic. The books are intended to help people appreciate what our rivers are all about (currently a much debated topic—especially our rare, fragile Chalk streams), with special emphasis on how important aquatic plants are, how they interact with the ecosystem, and why we should look after them.

Wondering what might be the best method for producing the artworks for these little books, Tina read up on Beatrix Potter's painting methods and liked her pen and watercolour washes—BP only used 6 colours! To practice the painting technique, Tina copied, in a large painting, some of BP's characters.

It is so important to realise now that something must be done about human impact—we see it everyday: rubbish and excrement on our beaches; rivers foaming with raw sewage; filling in ditches and old waterways (drying up); and flash-floods. The list is, unfortunately, becoming endless.

Art StyleTraditional

Art SubjectsStill Life, Animals, Floral, Nature, Fens

Art Materialsoils, acrylic, gouache, watercolour, coloured pencil, ink, pencil, paper, canvas