UPDATE: Wildlife Artist of the Year 2020 - small works

For those wanting to support a cause but not necessarily spend a lot of money you can do as I do most years and spend £60 on a sketch produced for Wildlife Artist of the Year

This is the link to where you can see the Sketch for Wildlife Series 2020

Each postcard is 6”x 4” in size and on sale for £60 with 100% being donated to David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF).

It's an excellent way of raising funds - and getting artwork on display and names of artists known without and framing or the work taking up too much space. It's used by very many good causes as a way of buying art - and you often don't get to find out the artist until you've bought the piece (which is not the case this year - where the sale is taking place online

My postcard art purchases 

Below you can see my monochrome series of previous purchases.

I have three absolute rules for my small wildlife works purchases which are:

• they must literally be postcard size i.e. 6 x 4inches or 15 x 10cm (i.e. 148 x 105 mm) so they can be framed easily and inexpensively (and not all those in the sketches gallery this year are - which is a pity)
• there has to be some sort of thoughtful aesthetic to them - and to be honest the gallery this year is dominated by the very literal 
• I also require skill in the use of media - preferably monochrome - which means graphite, charcoal or pastel - or a monochromatic fine art print. 

The monochrome theme has grown over time and I now stick to it on the basis of if I want to hang them together in the future I'd like them to look good together - and I'm a fan of monochrome.

These are three I've bought in the past - framed in the little white standard art postcard box frames which I always used to buy from the National Portrait Gallery - which means they stand on their edge on a bookshelf.

• The top one is the shadow of a sting ray zooming through the picture plane - which I really liked because it conveyed the speed of movement as well as the way it swims. It's by Tim Reeves - whose website I cannot find online.
• Bottom left was my first - and is a graphite drawing of a worm cast - and I bought it because it is so unusual. I love artists who find beauty in the most unusual things. This is by somebody called Sara ? - but I can't work out her surname and she hasn't labelled it on signed on the back as well (see How to sign ​a painting, drawing or fine art print)
• Bottom right is At Dusk which depicts a very simple and subtle murmuration of starlings by Simon Conolly. This is a motif I see regularly at the Wildlife Artist of the Year exhibitions. Simon is actually a sculptor - who specialises in birds in flight and I'm guessing this may have started as a sketch for a new work. I was rather pleased to snaffle this one as a postcard. 

My post card sized art from previous Wildlife Artist of the Year exhibitions

The display of Postcard Art at Wildlife Artist of the Year 2015 at the Mall Galleries
- which is when I bought the piece by Simon Connolly
(third column from the right, third row down)

PS The Online Exhibition of Wildlife Artist of the Year 2020 is now public - for viewing.