Alice Colson Debuts Wildlife Illustrations

Alice Colson is a French illustrator who has been enchanted by Namibian landscapes and wildlife.

As a child she had slightly skewed eyesight and after visiting an ophthalmologist, they suggested that she should start drawing to improve her vision.

Coupled with encouragement from her mother, who is an artist, and her father, who is a double bass player, she always felt supported in her creative pursuits – from playing the cello to drawing. “I’ve always been encouraged to express myself”, she shares.

After studying public administration, she became an independent consultant working for civil society organisations focusing on climate change, disaster management and environmental sustainability.

Since moving to Namibia last year, she decided to extend her expertise in sustainability and her artistic passions into wildlife illustrations. Her illustrations are often featured in the children’s magazine PAKO and other publications.

Her water colour illustrations offer cute facts and comics of different Namibian wildlife, like the meerkat, which stand on their hind legs to warm up their bellies, or the cheetah, which is the only ‘big cat’ that can turn mid-air while it sprints.

When travelling the country with friends and family, the self-taught artist often sits quietly away from the crowd with her sketchbooks, documenting little intricate details of whatever wildlife she comes across, and she paints with her water colours, capturing the colour of each creature in more vivid detail from memory.

Immersed in her work she shares: “Sometimes people don’t even notice that I’m drawing, it’s like I become invisible.”

She illustrates both manually and digitally, and has also created entertaining GIFs of her illustrations for digital platforms, like that of the francolin, her favourite bird.

“I like to think that illustration is a great tool to raise awareness, you can have a lot of fun and learn a lot through illustration [rather] than more traditional mediums. It can be an educational tool, like watching a YouTube video.”

Her illustrations and postcards are accessible to all ages, says Colson: “with my animal series, I really wanted to share more about Namibia with the world, and draw attention to animals that people outside of Namibia had never heard about, like the grey go-away bird. It was also an opportunity for me to learn more about Namibian wildlife as well.”

In future she hopes to share more of her work on her Instagram page and website and she would love to illustrate children’s books.

Alice Colson’s Postcards launch will be on 14 April at 16h00 at the Red Shelf adjacent to the Craft Centre on Tal Street in Windhoek.

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