The Tupra Station 100 year old Woolshed with 2000 sheep ready for a day's shearing this
Woolshed was destroyed in a tornado in
5 minutes on 21st December, 2007 along with all the shearers quarters seen
in the background. A lot of damage was also done to all the trees
around the complex.
Chris McClelland managed a large sheep station in the Riverina district near Hay, NSW, Australia. He had a very busy life but now he has
retired from station life he has time to create, fine, unique pencil drawings for which he
is famous for.
Chris's natural talent was recognized at school where he was awarded numerous Art prizes.
His jackerooing days inspired a series of action drawings of buckjumping horses. Later, as
a Station Manager he occasionally drew horses for friends as well as Polocrosse ponies
enjoying the game, which he enjoyed playing. One of these paintings was featured on
the front cover of the N.S.W. Polocrosse magazine.
Chris grew up with a love of Africa inherited from his parents. David, his father, spent
four years in Africa during World War 11 attached to the RAF. During the last two years he
established and commanded the British Air Force staging post situated at Juba in the
Sudan. He organised a local tribes man to carve some wonderful wooden animals especially
for his young son. These, together with his mother's fascination with Africa, were perhaps
the catalyst for his love of wild life.
In 1994 Chris, his wife Margie and daughter Miranda spent three weeks on safari
travelling
overland through East Africa. While on the safari, Chris concentrated on his video and
also kept a detailed diary of their travels. Margie and Miranda shot numerous photographs
of the scenery and the wildlife animals and birds. Chris combined his diary and
Margie's into book form for his family, then decided to illustrate it as well with his own
drawings, thus starting an avalanche of ideas. Chris is using the large library of
photographs taken by his travelling companions and blending them into his unique style of
African drawings.
There has been a great deal of interest shown in the original four drawings that went into
a Limited Edition Print Set in April, 1996. They won for the printers, van
Gastels Printers of Adelaide, a Golden Award at the Australian National Printing Awards
for 1996 held in Melbourne in March 1997. The award was for one colour printing and they
were voted the finest example in this category. They were sent over to America for the
International Printing Awards for 1996 where they won the second highest award in the same
category.
The drawing of The River Horses won the Catani
Drawing Award at the annual exhibition of the Wildlife Art Society of
Australasia held in Melbourne 1996. This was the first professional
exhibition Chris had entered.
Chris and his family, this time, including Lochiel, his son, made a return trip to Africa
in May, 1996. The trip took them to Lake Kariba, Deception Valley Kalahari, Okavango
Delta, the Moremi Wildlife Reserve, Chobe National Park, Victoria Falls and finishing back
at Harare. The result of this trip was the drawing Tracks of Destiny. This is a pencil and gouache drawing of
the endangered species the Painted Hunting Dogs which
the family saw for thirty minutes as they played around the safari truck, between
North Gate and Savuti. This drawing took over two hundred hours to complete such is the
fine detail that Chris puts into all his work.
Chris also completed his first Safari lodge drawing, Pamuzinda or Royal Meeting Place near
Selous out of Harare, at the end of the safari. This appeared in the African Safari
Magazine issue no 5 of summer 1997.
In May 1997 Landela Safari asked Chris and Margie to travel around their Safari Lodges in
Zimbabwe - Landela at Harare, Gache Gache at Lake Kariba, Sekuti's Drift and Masuwe at
Victoria Falls and Chokamella near Hwange National Park. This resulted in
Chris drawing five unique pencil drawing of each lodge.
Each of the drawings would have taken Chris one hundred and twenty to thirty
hours to complete. They are a collage of scenes around the lodges and some of the animals
that were seen. Sekuti's Drift, also appeared in the African Safari Magazine issue no 6,
winter 1997. Stewart Cranswick, part owner of Landela Lodges, was thrilled with the five
Zimbabwe drawings. He went into original size prints and postcards of these drawings which
he is marketing at the lodges.
In November 1997 Chris released another print Pride of the
Plains, a pencil drawing of a family group of lions. This also appeared in the
African Safari Magazine No 7, Summer 1998. Stewart invited Chris to return to Africa
in May 1998 to draw his two new Safari Camps in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Rann's and
Xudum Camps are on private concessions in the Delta. Since this time he has been
back to Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe and returned to Botswana to draw more lodges in the
Okarvango Delta and near Chobe National Park
Chris returns to Africa regularly to gather more material for
his wildlife drawings and to more commission work. His living drawings
are greatly sought after by discerning collectors.
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