France Bauduin
United Kingdom
Established near Bristol, England since 1997, she was born in Québec, Canada, the daughter of a professional wood sculptor specializing in “haut-relief” sculptures depicting wild animals in action in natural habitat and the true source of her inspiration.
Her first goal has always been to transmit her love and knowledge of animals, especially cats, through her color pencil drawings. Cats are often depicted as aloof/independent creatures, which is true for most of them, most of the time. However, what she also wants to illustrate is the strong relationships they have as kittens as well as their strong bond with their mother.
She also loves new challenges and will at times attempt subjects totally out of her comfort zone like her iguana Scales & Bark. Technically, this was the most difficult drawing she ever attempted, with the need to get the right number of scales, their exact color, size as well as 3D shape which took her 265 hours to complete.
Her drawings have been displayed in several exhibitions in London and other cities in England and she has illustrated the following two cat novels: White Chin and Magnificat by Marilyn Edwards as well as the non-fiction book: Of Dogs and Cats and Bear by Jenny Melmoth. She also offers regular “cp Drawing workshops”.
Several of her articles have also been published in professional American cp magazines like Colored Pencil and Anne Kullberg’s Color. She also had several drawings published in Ann Kullberg’s CP Treasures Colored Pencil Masterworks.
Her wildlife drawings have won numerous awards with diverse Colour Pencil Societies (UKCPS, AUSCPA (Australia), PAS (Canadian), CPSA (USA), some Special Merits in LightSpaceTime competitions and have been finalists in the Russia’s Golden Turtle competition in the Animal portrait category a few times, winning even a 3rd prize in the category Animal in their Environment in 2017 and a 1st prize in the category Animal portrait in 2021.
Anyone can draw an animal head, but if you know the animal very well, you can infuse some “life” in it and create “a moment”, something that speaks to you and whoever is looking at it. This is what she is trying to achieve with her drawings and teachings these days.
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 16th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.
