Cornwall woman up for Wildlife Artist of the Year

Naomi Jenkin's drawing The Elephant Charge will be displayed in London

An artist from Cornwall has made it through to the finals of Wildlife Artist of the Year 2024.

Naomi Jenkin's drawing The Elephant Charge will be displayed in London between 1-6 July in the run up to the awards ceremony.

The Newquay based artist has been drawing "all her life" but turned professional in 2018.

She said she was "absolutely over the moon" to be recognised for her work.

'Combine different elements'

The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) Wildlife Artist of the Year is an internationally renowned wildlife art competition and exhibition.

There were more than 1,200 entries for 2024 including plastic sculptures, oil paintings and pencil drawings.

Ms Jenkin's pastel drawing, which depicts an African Elephant, took several months to complete from its conception to the finished product.

She said: "I'll have an idea, so I'll do some sketches and try and get a solid concept of what I want to achieve.

"Then I will go away and get a lot of reference photos, then I combine different elements to make it how I want it to look.

"Elephants are one of the most tricky things to draw because of the texture and the creases and wrinkles going on.

"I wanted to inject a lot of energy into the piece and get movement of it almost coming out of the page, so I'm really pleased with how it came together."

Ms Jenkin's pastel drawing which depicts an African Elephant took months to complete

Alongside her wildlife art, Ms Jenkin said she also draws pet portraits for clients around the world.

She said: "I get quite immersed, I tend to spend full days start to finish drawing until it's done, essentially living and breathing a piece of art.

"A lot of my wildlife art focuses around endangered species and I've done a lot of work through charities to raise money with my artwork.

"For me, I think it's really important to raise awareness to help support wildlife conservation projects in this way."

The DSWF Wildlife Artist of the Year winners will be announced on 1 July.