Colouring the South Downs National Park

We illustrated some giant colouring canvasses for the South Downs National Park Authority as a way of celebrating the park’s unique landscape and wildlife.

The murals were coloured by the public at Wild Chalk Family Fun Day in east Brighton and at Boomtown Fair in Hampshire.

Both events took place on chalk downland within the national park, landscape that features rolling hills and valleys shaped as the raised layer of chalk slowly erodes.

Travelling into the picture the foreground gives way interlocking slopes, chalk cliffs and the English Channel sea.

There’s lots of flora from the South Downs in the colouring picture, including bee orchids, pyramid orchids, carline thistles, hawthorn and wayfaring bushes.

Amongst the vegetation are Adonis Blue, Chalkhill Blue, and Dark Green Fritillary butterflies, Striped Lychnis catterpillars and Silver Spotted Skipper moths.

Hundreds of people at both events did some fantastic colouring with artists’ paint pens, to create finished paintings together.

The team from The South Downs National Park Authority were bursting with passion, they celebrated the National Park’s diversity of unique species and excited people with their knowledge of the local landscapes.