Artist given stamp of approval

Westwood-based wildlife artist Karen Baddock (44) with her painting of New Zealand shoveller ducks, a detail from which will feature in the 2009 New Zealand Post Game Bird Habitat Collection. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.

A detail from her painting of two New Zealand shoveller ducks beside a high country stream, the image of a male duck, was accepted last year by New Zealand Post for use on a limited edition $10 New Zealand Game Bird Habitat Collection stamp.

Last week, she finished signing hundreds of limited edition prints and collectors' packs, which will go on sale on February 2.

Mrs Baddock said she had been a self-employed artist for 18 years, working on watercolours for most of that time, before a recent move to oil painting, which allowed different uses of light in her highly realistic painting.

"I've changed mediums but haven't changed my style. I love using all mediums, from pencil to watercolour to oil.

"While my passion is birdlife - there's so much detail it's a real challenge - I also find pleasure in painting a wide variety of subjects.

"My painting varies from roses to an old country barn or my daughters walking among trees, but it always involves nature - it's very 'New Zealand rustic country'."

Drawing and painting had been a passion since childhood.

As a child, inspiration was all around on her parents' Westwood farm.

She and her husband, Evan, and daughters Katie (15) and Holly (12) now live on part of the farm.

Producing a piece of art could take between two weeks and two months and often involved finding birds to study in settings as varied as the wilds of Fiordland and Southland and, like the shovellers, the Queenstown Wildlife Park, as well as stuffed skins from museums.

While photographs and sketches were often the basis for a painting, fine details of anatomy such as beaks and feet were often copied from birds kept in a freezer.

She was now working on a series on small native birds.

•Fish and Game Fish and Game Otago operations manager Iain Hadland said Mrs Baddock's work would take centre stage at World Wetlands Day activities near the Sinclair Wetlands on February 1.

A $10 stamp from the series would go on every game bird shooter's 2009 licence, with $2 from the licence donated to the Gamebird Habitat Trust Fund for wetland and gamebird habitat development around New Zealand, he said.